Hugh Bancroft (September 13, 1879 – October 17, 1933) was an American publisher and attorney who was the president of the Dow Jones & Company from 1928 to 1933.

He graduated from Harvard College at the age of 17 and earned a masters of arts degree in civil engineering from the Lawrence Scientific School the following year.

[2] In 1906, Governor Curtis Guild Jr. appointed Bancroft to his military staff as judge advocate general.

[7] In 1907, district attorney George A. Sanderson was made an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court and Guild appointed Bancroft to succeed him.

[10][11] Bancroft found that the hair of all of the deceaseds' mattresses had been washed in arsenic and convinced John J. Higgins to drop the case.

[2] Under Bancroft's leadership, the state-of-the art Commonwealth Piers 5 and 6 were built and construction began on a new drydock facility that was to be the largest in the world.

[18][22] On October 19, 1933, associate medical examiner George V. Higgins revealed that Bancroft had died from suicide caused by "asphyxiation by coal gas with a question of cyanide fumes".

[23] Bancroft had gone to a blacksmith shop on his estate, closed and stuffed the doors and windows, started a fire in the forge, and died from the resulting fumes.

[25] Control of Dow Jones & Company remained in the Bancroft family until 2007, when it was sold to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp.