William Watson-Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong

The following year he gave £100,000 (equivalent to £13,712,955 in 2023),[4] for the building of the new Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, for which the city conferred upon him the honorary Freedom in July 1901.

[5] The original 1753 infirmary buildings at Forth Banks near the river Tyne were inadequate and impossible to expand.

[6] In September 1901 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) from the University of Durham.

[7] In 1903 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Armstrong, of Bamburgh and Cragside in the County of Northumberland,[8] a revival of the barony which had become extinct on his great-uncle's death three years earlier.

Lord Armstrong died in October 1941, aged 78, and was succeeded in the barony by his only son, William.