The Trust was founded in 1978 by Mary Glasgow CBE. Honoured by both the French and British governments for her outstanding work in the fields of both languages education and the arts, Mary Glasgow was successively a languages teacher, HMI, first Secretary-General of the Arts Council and educational publisher.

The Trust continues to thrive under the chairmanship of her nephew, Edwin Glasgow CBE, QC. Current Trustees have wide experience of modern languages work at a national and international level in all sectors of education, as well as on government-sponsored and independent education bodies. 

The Trust’s aim is primarily to support and encourage outstanding curriculum development in the teaching of languages. Accordingly, it awards occasional grants, and, more particularly, annual cash prizes, with the dual purpose of assisting schools and colleges, and bringing excellence to national attention. 

Since 2000, the Trust has been collaborating with CILT, the National Centre for Languages, as a partner in the development of the European Awards for Languages. The Trust’s special contribution to this is an annual £2000 Mary Glasgow Award for the EAL winning project which has most impressed the Trust’s judges.

Alongside the Mary Glasgow Award, a major programme of annual Mary Glasgow 14-19 Curriculum Prizes was formally launched at the European Awards ceremony in Edinburgh on 26 September 2006, with the first £5000 presentation made in November 2007 at the European Awards ceremony in Cardiff.

In March 2006, the Nuffield Foundation generously agreed to support the  Mary Glasgow 14-19 Prize with a grant of £39,800 for the whole 3 year programme. In 2007, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation agreed a generous grant of £20,000 which was used to help fund the prizes in 2008.