Born Trinidad. Moved to New York where she became a Communist. Caught up in the McCarthy trials she was imprisoned and then extradited to Britain in December 1955. Became a community organiser after the Notting Hill race riots in 1958 and, in January 1959, as the editor of the Black newspaper The West Indian Gazette, she initiated an indoor annual event which later become the Notting Hill Carnival.
Died at home, Lisburne Road, Gospel Oak, on Christmas Eve 1964, and was found on Christmas Day.
Buried Highgate Cemetery, beside Karl Marx in what was for a long time an unmarked grave but then "a group of youngsters from the Afro Caribbean Organisation in King’s Cross ... raised money to buy a headstone in 1984." From the .
Sources include .
2025: Prompted by Kwaku contacting us and querying Jones's date of death, Andrew Behan has further researched Claudia Jones as follows...
Claudia Vera Cumberbatch was born on 21 February 1915 in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, a daughter of Charles Bertrand Cumberbatch (b.1884) and Minnie Magdelene Logan Cumberbatch (1890-1928).
She arrived on 15 December 1955 in Southampton, Hampshire, having departed from New York, USA aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth of the Cunard Steam-Ship Company Limited, where on the ships manifest she is shown as Jones, Claudia who was travelling Cabin Class, a single female, a journalist and confirmed her date of birth as 21 February 1915. She gave 3a Niean, London, S.E. as her intended address in the UK. We can find no London address to which "Niean" might refer: A puzzle. Her death was registered as Claudia Vera Jones, aged 49 years, in the 4th quarter of 1964 in the Hampstead Registration District, London.
Probate records read:- CUMBERBATCH or JONES, Claudia Vera of 58 Lisburne Road, Hampstead, London, NW3, died 25 December 1964. Administration (limited) 13 January 1965 to Abhimanya Manchanda, journalist and company director. Effects £876.
Her ashes were interred on 25 February 1965 in Highgate Cemetery, Swain's Lane, London, N6 6PJ. The biography by Linda Davis at gives much details about her life, including that she adopted the surname Jones as a pen-name whilst in the USA and also gives an image of her headstone, which asserts that she died on 25 December 1964.
According to her Wikipedia page and several other websites, she died alone and her body was not found until 25 December 1964, so it would appear to be a matter of speculation as to the precise date of her death.
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