His father, Philip William Bagwell (1885-1958), was a conscientious objector in the First World War, and although Bagwell rejected pacifism, he maintained a lifelong commitment to radical social causes associated with Christian socialism, a commitment that infused all his major published work.
Bagwell was a lifelong advocate of public transport and especially of the economic, social and cultural virtues of railway travel.
He continued to write influential and impeccably researched books, pamphlets and articles on public and communal issues in transport policy in a period when official opinion in Britain was gradually swinging increasingly towards purely private emphases.
A researcher of tireless energy, at the time of his death, aged 92, he was writing a new book on global warming and transport policy, a topic he saw as of crucial moral and social significance for the future.
“Prison Cell to Council Chamber” Philip S Bagwell (with Joan Lawley) (York: Ebro Press, 1994)