Armstrong College and the College of Medicine were merged in 1937 to form King's College of Durham University (the Durham Division remained predominantly dedicated to the teaching of theology and liberal arts).
Growth of the Newcastle Division of the federal Durham University led to extreme tensions in the structure and in 1963 an Act of Parliament separated the two divisions of the federal structure, leaving Durham as an 'Oxbridge'-style collegiate university and creating the University of Newcastle upon Tyne as a monolithic university similar to Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester.