History: 1953-1957

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The Marshall Scholarships are distinctive among British award programmes in being established by an Act of Parliament. The principal architect of the scheme was Roger Makins (Lord Sherfield) who, as Deputy Under Secretary in the Foreign Office supervising the American Department, arranged for the bill to be drafted and passed through Parliament. Soon after the bill passed he was transferred to Washington as Ambassador where he was able to organize the scheme in the United States.

The idea behind the Marshall Scholarships was to build on the Rhodes Scholarships established by a private bequest a half-century earlier. The Rhodes scheme was acknowledged to be an outstanding success, but it was restricted to one British university and, in 1953-54, to one carefully defined category of male candidate. The Marshall, in Roger Makins's view, would extend the Rhodes Scholarship idea and apply it, without distinction of gender and with a wider age range, to any university in the United Kingdom.

The Marshall Aid Commemoration Act became law on 31 July 1953. It established a Commission to manage the Scholarships under the chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, who had been British Ambassador in Washington while the Marshall Plan was in operation. By agreement, the Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth (now the Association of Commonwealth Universities) provided the secretariat for the new Commission and John Foster, the Association's Secretary General, became the Marshall Commission's first Executive Secretary.

The Commission's operating expenses in its first year were £1,877, most of them incurred in the United States.

The idea behind the Marshall Scholarships was to build on the Rhodes Scholarships established by a private bequest a half-century earlier. The Rhodes scheme was acknowledged to be an outstanding success, but it was restricted to one British university and, in 1953-54, to one carefully defined category of male candidate. The Marshall, in Roger Makins's view, would extend the Rhodes Scholarship idea and apply it, without distinction of gender and with a wider age range, to any university in the United Kingdom.

The Marshall Aid Commemoration Act became law on 31 July 1953. It established a Commission to manage the Scholarships under the chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, who had been British Ambassador in Washington while the Marshall Plan was in operation. By agreement, the
Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth (now the Association of Commonwealth Universities) provided the secretariat for the
new Commission and John Foster, the Association's Secretary General, became the Marshall Commission's first Executive Secretary.

The Commission's operating expenses in its first year were £1,877, most of them incurred in the United States.

In the United States four regional boards were established based in New York, New Orleans, Chicago and San Francisco to interview candidates and make recommendations to a national Advisory Council chaired by the British Ambassador. The Advisory Council was to review the regional recommendations and prepare a national list of recommended candidates that it would refer to the Marshall Commission for final approval.

Seven hundred students applied for the new awards in the first year; seventy-four were interviewed and twelve were offered Scholarships. There were eight men and four women. Two were Stanford graduates, with Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Dartmouth, Harvard, Kentucky, Oberlin, Princeton, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin providing the remainder. Four Scholars elected to go to London (all to the London School of Economics), four to Oxford, and one each to Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow and Manchester. Seven used their Marshall to study for a graduate degree, the remainder a second BA.

An unanticipated problem emerged from one Scholar's desire to study journalism in Britain. In 1954 none of the twenty-four British universities and university colleges recognized journalism as an academic discipline. In the end the Scholar settled for a postgraduate programme in English.

The stipend of a Marshall Scholarship in 1954 was £550 a year, from which it was expected that university fees would be paid. These ranged from £14 to £20 a year.