Hammer, attorney for WSJ’s Bancrofts, dies at 81

Roy Hammer, who was the trustee for the Bancroft family during the last decades of the family’s legendary ownership of The Wall Street Journal and its control of Dow Jones & Co., died last month at the age of 81, writes J.M. Lawrence of the Boston Globe.

Lawrence writes, “In the mid-1990s, it fell to Mr. Hammer to manage a public rebellion by some of the younger Bancrofts against the structure of the family trusts. ‘Disgruntled heiress leads revolt at Dow Jones,’ was a February 1997 Fortune magazine headline.

“The younger generation voiced concern that the older generation benefited from rising Dow Jones dividends while younger family members had to cope with languishing stock prices reducing their inheritance.

“Those at Hemenway & Barnes endured claims from a Bancroft heir that as trustees, they favored the older Bancrofts in order to increase the firm’s income. Mr. Hammer found himself in the glare of an unfamiliar spotlight as he and his partners insisted that the firm’s compensation arrangement did not affect the advice they offered.

“The Bancroft family squabble eventually cooled. In 2002, Jane Bancroft Cook — who was the largest family shareholder at Dow Jones, and who became a member of the board in 1949 — died at age 90.”

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