When Alfred Lewis Jones died in 1909 he left a large bequest to the school. Thanks to this and other donations that it received the school was able to set up its own laboratory and teaching premises in Pembroke Place, separate from the University of Liverpool, upon whose facilities it had previously relied. The laboratory was completed in 1914 but due to the advent of the war occupation of the building by LTSM was deferred and it was used as a Tropical Diseases Hospital offering courses to officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Professor R M Gordon joined the school in 1919 and by 1920 teaching had resumed and the school finally moved into its own building.