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In 1880, Dugdale was chosen secretary of the newly formed Society for Political Education. This society was founded by R. R. Bowker, E. M. Shepard, A. E. Walradt, David A. Wells, W. C. Ford, George H. Putnam, and William M. Ivins, of New York City. These men founded this society in the belief "that the success of the government depends on the active political influence of educated intelligence, and that parties are means, not ends." This society issued many pamphlets on political questions of the day, including taxation, work and wealth, civil service reform, and money and its substitutes.

Dugdale died on July 23, 1883, at his residence, 4 Morton Street, New York City, made familiar by him as the office of the Society for Political Education. The same heart disease which followed him through life caused his death. Mr. R. R. Bowker, who knew Dugdale well, says that he was a modest man of frail physique. He was thin, of fair height, spare, and always abstemious. He was not of striking personal appearance, but on the contrary had almost no presence. He was rather reticent about early life, saying that his own personality and life we no import. He was unpretentious but efficient, and gave all his time to altruistic work.

Mr. George Haven Putnam, the publisher, said:

"Dugdale was a man of exaggerated unselfishness, extreme modesty, and in a discussion would rather assent to the other's opinion than to force his own. He entirely lacked personal ambition."

In his "Memories of a Publisher" (pp. 171, 172), Mr. Putnam writes:

"Dugdale was an Englishman who had inherited a small competency that saved him from giving daily hours to business work. He had large ideals for the education of the community. He had convinced himself, as many other public-spirited men have convinced themselves, that if representative government is not to be a farce, the fighting power must be in the hands of voters who possess adequate information in regard to the issues to be decided from election to election, and who possess further a sufficient training to utilize such information and to arrive at an intelligent judgment for their action as citizens.

"Dugdale had a great belief in the influence of reasonable argument. He thought that the voters of a community could be educated to a public-spirited understanding of its duties by means of tracts, monographs, political sermons, etc."

Dugdale was much attached to his sister, Jane Margaret, an invalid. He was never attracted to other women, and was very shy and retiring in their presence. The older sister, Agnes, and the mother died before he did. Jane survived him a short time, dying August 27, 1884.

Jane Dugdale, by her will, gave all her residuary estate to four persons to form a corporation to be known as "Richard L. Dugdale Fund for the Promotion in the United States of Sound Political Knowledge and Opinions." The committee which received this property consisted Messrs. Bowker, Ford, and Shepard. For some years the bequest and its income were used for purposes of that character and on January 30, 1900, the balance ($1,311.72) was turned over to the New York Public Library with a request that it should be expended for books on sociological and economic subjects, the fund to be known as the Richard L. Dugdale Fund. With this money about a thousand books on economic subjects have been purchased by the library and are now on its shelves: a small but fitting memorial to one who gave, without seeking or obtaining any adequate recognition, his best years and most fruitful labor to the service of humanity.