It is impossible to attribute credit for the development of the idea of a School of Social Work in Liverpool to any particular individual because it was, characteristically, a joint venture. However, the person who first advanced a precise proposal was undoubtedly Edward Gonner, the professor of economics. Gonner had come to Liverpool from Oxford in 1888 in what was regarded by some of his contemporaries as an act of misguided altruism. He was one of the earliest of the new breed of academics attracted to the North by the potential of the budding universities. In accord with the founders’ intention, his post was that of both lecturer in the novel subject of political theory and tutor in commercial practice; he was wholeheartedly committed to the college's policy of relating the pursuit of learning to the most practical of purposes. Tall, thin, cadaverous, an inveterate talker, within a couple of years he had so promoted his subject that John Brunner, the chemical industry magnate, provided funds to endow a chair in political economy and commercial practice to which, unsurprisingly, Gonner was duly appointed.

No provincial, Gonner cultivated contacts in many quarters. In particular, his friendship with C. S. Loch, secretary of the national Charity Organisations Committee, kept him well informed about the energetic discussion going on in London as to the pros and cons of training for charitable work, whether by voluntary workers or statutory agencies. The Women's University Settlement in Southwark was already exploring the nature and content of such a course and it is possible that it was at this time that Gonner came across Elizabeth Macadam, then a youth worker in a London club. Certainly it was through Loch that he heard of Macadam's appointment in 1903 as the new warden at the Victoria Settlement in Liverpool. The moment was especially opportune because the Liverpool College, after 25 years of existence, had finally achieved university status with the granting of its charter in 1903.