They were living here during the Baedeker Raid on York on 29 April 1942, during which a bomb narrowly missed the Museum, but caused considerable damage to the roof and windows.

Wagstaffe led the efforts to clean up the museum and salvage the Type fossils from the wreckage.

[1] Wagstaffe worked with the Honorary Curators of Entomology, Walter Douglas Hincks and A Smith to collect specimens for the museum from Askham Bog.

[3] He also worked with Hincks to bring the Ellis collection of insects to the museum in 1945.

[4] He left the Yorkshire Museum in 1948 to take up the post of Keeper of Vertebrate Zoology at Liverpool City Museum where he remained for the rest of his working life, founding the Liverpool Ornithologist's Club and serving as a member of the British Birds Rarities Committee from 1963 to 1970.