The Bancroft family are the former owners of Dow Jones & Company, which is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (NewsCorp).
The Bancroft family were publicly reclusive Boston socialites who inherited The Wall Street Journal from Clarence W. Barron, who had built up a notable reputation for the newspaper as its publisher.
Barron's son-in-law and Jane's husband, lawyer Hugh Bancroft (1879–1933), ran the company and the paper for the next five years.
The family members maintained ownership of the company through ensuing generations, though management was placed in the hands of professionals, including The Wall Street Journal's editor Bernard Kilgore.
At the time of the sale, those board members included Christopher Bancroft and his cousins Leslie Hill and Elizabeth Steele.