Hedley Powell Jacobs

Jacobs died on 10 October 1985 in Kingston, Jamaica, from the effects of pneumonia and a bleeding duodenal ulcer.

In 1966 he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for public services to literature and history.

In 1945, he was the first editor of The Jamaican Historical Review, journal of the Jamaican Historical Society, an organisation of which he was also president, arguing in his article "The Untapped Sources of Jamaican History" for the inclusion of linguistic and folklore material in the study of the Jamaican working class during slavery in order to avoid their history becoming a history of the ruling class.

He married Lily Elizabeth Thomas, the daughter of the reverend Charles R. G. Thomas, in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica, in 1938.

He was the vice president of the National Reform Association (founded March 1938), a forerunner of the People's National Party, of which he was on the founding committee.

Jacobs emigrated to Jamaica in 1926. He taught at Jamaica College. In 1936 he was admitted to The Linguistic Society of America with a specialism in Teutonic and Creole languages.

Hedley Powell Jacobs OBE (15 March 1904 – 10 October 1985) was an English journalist, historian, writer, and socialist, who emigrated to Jamaica and was one of the founders of the People's National Party in 1938.

Hedley Powell Jacobs was born on 15 March 1904 in Halifax, Yorkshire, to Creswell Thomas Jacobs and Annie Jacobs. His father was born in Abergavenny and worked as the company secretary in a gas plant manufacturing company. He was christened in Elland, York, in April 1904. He received his BA from the University of Oxford.