Bancroft family

Last updated

The Bancroft family are the former owners of Dow Jones & Company, which is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (NewsCorp).

Contents

Biography

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. [1] Upon Barron's death in 1928, control of the company passed to Bancroft's stepdaughters Jane and Martha, who were children of his wife, Jessie Waldron. 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.

Suffering from depression, Bancroft committed suicide in 1933 at the age of 54. 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. [2]

A notable family member of the following generation was Mary Bancroft (1903–1997), Hugh Bancroft's only daughter by his first marriage to Mary Agnes Cogan (1879–1903). She worked for the United States Intelligence Community in Switzerland during World War II. [3] [4] She wrote novels and a memoir, Autobiography of a Spy, [5] before dying in 1997 at the age of ninety-three. She was survived by six grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.

Jane Bancroft's daughter Jessie Bancroft Cox was another prominent member of the second generation. Her husband, son, and grandson—William C. Cox, Bill Cox Jr., and Billy Cox III, respectively—were "the only Bancrofts to have actually worked at Dow Jones since Hugh Bancroft's suicide." [6]

The family members' private pastimes consist mainly of show-horse breeding, sailing, and farming. However, the family has also produced a speedboat champion and an airline pilot. [1]

Dow Jones-NewsCorp sale

At the time of the 2007 sale of the Dow Jones & Company to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, the Bancroft family, which included over 30 members, owned 42 percent of the business but controlled 68 percent of the voting stock of Dow Jones [7] through their possession of 7.5 million Class B shares. In the sale to Murdoch, the Bancrofts made more than $1.2 billion.

Bancroft family representatives filled three seats on the Dow Jones board of directors, representing three branches of the family—the descendants of the three children of Hugh and Jane Bancroft. At the time of the sale, those board members included Christopher Bancroft and his cousins Leslie Hill and Elizabeth Steele.

The Bancroft family initially held out for three months against Murdoch's advances until accepting a $60-per-share offer from NewsCorp. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Murdoch</span> Australian-born American business magnate (born 1931)

Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dow Jones & Company</span> American publishing and financial information company

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Corporation</span> American media company (1980–2013)

The original incarnation of News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's largest media company in terms of total assets and the world's fourth largest media group in terms of revenue, and News Corporation had become a media powerhouse since its inception, dominating the news, television, film, and print industries.

The Wall Street Journal is an American business and economic-focused international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in broadsheet format and online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, and is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 39 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Murdoch</span> British media executive

James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is a British-American businessman. He is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.

Local Media Group, Inc., formerly Dow Jones Local Media Group and Ottaway Newspapers Inc., owned newspapers, websites and niche publications in California, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania. It was headquartered in Campbell Hall, New York, and its flagship was the Times Herald-Record, serving Middletown and other suburbs of New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarence W. Barron</span>

Clarence W. Barron was one of the most influential figures in the history of Dow Jones & Company. As a career newsman described as a "short, rotund powerhouse", he died holding the posts of president of Dow Jones and de facto manager of The Wall Street Journal. He is considered the founder of modern financial journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendi Deng Murdoch</span> Chinese-American businesswoman

Wendi Deng Murdoch is a Chinese-born American entrepreneur, investor, film producer, and collector of Chinese contemporary art.

Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and free sources. Providing organizations with search, alerting, dissemination, and other information management capabilities. Factiva products claim to provide access to more than 32,000 sources such as newspapers, journals, magazines, television and radio transcripts, photos, etc. These are sourced from nearly every country in the world in 28 languages, including more than 600 continuously updated newswires.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Lewis (journalist)</span> British newspaper publishing executive

Sir William John Lewis is a British media executive and was formerly chief executive of Dow Jones & Company and publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Earlier in his career he was known as a journalist and then editor.

Hathaway Publishing was a subsidiary of The Local Media Group Inc. Hathaway published five weekly newspapers in the South Coast region of Massachusetts.

<i>Mail Tribune</i> Newspaper in Medford, Oregon

The Mail Tribune was a seven-day daily newspaper based in Medford, Oregon, United States that served Jackson County, Oregon, and adjacent areas of Josephine County, Oregon and northern California.

The Barnstable Patriot is a weekly newspaper published in and for the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. Although it bills itself as "an independent voice since 1830", The Patriot has been owned, since 2019, by Gannett.

Leslie Frank Hinton is a British-American journalist, writer and business executive whose career with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation spanned more than fifty years. Hinton worked in newspapers, magazines and television as a reporter, editor and executive in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and became an American citizen in 1986. He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by News Corp. Hinton has variously been described as Murdoch's "hitman"; one of his "most trusted lieutenants"; and an "astute political operator". He left the company in 2011. His memoir, The Bootle Boy, was published in the UK in May 2018, and in the US under the title An Untidy Life in October of the same year.

Natalie Bancroft is a member of the board of directors of News Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Corp</span> American multinational mass media company

News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is a mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was formed on June 28, 2013, following a spin-off of the media outlets of the original News Corporation as 21st Century Fox (21CF). Operating across digital real estate information, news media, book publishing, and cable television, News Corp's notable assets include Dow Jones & Company, News UK, News Corp Australia, REA Group, Realtor.com, and book publisher HarperCollins.

Members of the Murdoch family are prominent international media magnates and media tycoons with roots in Australia and the United Kingdom, along with their media assets in the United States. Some members have also been prominent in the arts, clergy, and military.

Mary Bancroft was an American novelist and spy and a member of the Bancroft family, which at one time owned Dow Jones & Company. In 1942, while living in Switzerland, Bancroft was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, and both worked and had a romantic relationship with Allen Dulles. Her most important work was with Hans Bernd Gisevius, a German military intelligence officer who supplied her with details of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. After the war, Bancroft settled in New York and became a novelist.

<i>Heat Street</i> Former news, opinion, and commentary website

Heat Street was a news, opinion and commentary website based in the United States and United Kingdom. The website was launched in April 2016 by U.S.-based British writer and former politician Louise Mensch. It was owned by News Corp under Dow Jones & Company and featured sections on politics, technology, culture, business, entertainment, and life. News Corporation announced that the site would shut down on August 4, 2017, to become part of MarketWatch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Bancroft (attorney)</span> American lawyer and publisher

Hugh Bancroft was an American publisher and attorney who was the president of the Dow Jones & Company from 1928 to 1933.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Armstrong, Stephen (August 2, 2007). "Meet the Bancrofts, the media clan who sold out to Murdoch". The Guardian: g2. p. 2.
  2. ↑ Tungate, Mark (2004), Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive, London: Kogan Page, p. 81
  3. ↑ Calhoun, Chris, ed. (2003), 52 McGs: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Writer Robert McG. Thomas, Jr., New York: Citadel Press, pp. 184–187
  4. ↑ "Mary Bancroft Dead at 93; U.S. Spy in World War II", New York Times, January 19, 1997
  5. ↑ Bancroft, Mary (1983), Autobiography of a Spy: Debutante, Writer, Confidante, Secret Agent; the True Story of Her Extraordinary Life, New York: William Morrow
  6. ↑ Wolff, Michael (2008), The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch, New York: Broadway Books, p. 27
  7. ↑ Pavlik, John Vernon; McIntosh, Shawn (2003), Converging Media: An Introduction to Mass Communication, Old Tappan, NJ: Allyn & Bacon, p. 89
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.