The tomb was designed by Laurence Bradshaw and it was unveiled in 1956, in a ceremony led by Harry Pollitt, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which funded the memorial.

The pedestal is inscribed with quotes from Marx's works including, on the front, the final words of The Communist Manifesto, "Workers of all lands unite".

[4] Throughout his time in London, Marx lived in financially straitened circumstances and was heavily reliant on the support of his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels.

They were Engels, Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, Paul Lafargue, Charles Longuet, Helene Demuth, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Gottlieb Lemke, Frederich Lessner, Georg Lochner, Sir Ray Lankester, Carl Schorlemmer and Ernest Radford.

[14] The reburials were the precursor to the construction of the Karl Marx tomb, designed by Laurence Bradshaw[15] and funded by the Communist Party of Great Britain.

[13] Since its construction, the tomb has become a place of veneration for Marx's followers,[17] including some, such as the anti-apartheid activist Yusuf Dadoo and the founder of the Notting Hill Carnival Claudia Jones, who have been buried nearby.

[24] In 1960, a pair of yellow swastikas were painted on the tomb, as well as slogans in German supporting Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann, who was then in custody in Israel.

The texts on the front of the memorial are the closing words of "The Communist Manifesto", "Workers of all lands unite", and those which conclude the Theses on Feuerbach, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways • the point however is to change it".

[15] A central panel records the dates of the births and deaths of Marx, of his wife, of their daughter Eleanor, of their grandson Harry Longuet and of their housekeeper Helene Demuth.