The records document the activities of two generations of the Bancroft family in England and America and consist primarily of account books from the various family businesses, including the Todmorden and Brandywine woolen mills and the Rockford cotton mill.

The Account books series includes information on customers, raw materials, and suppliers. Wage books include production records and tabulations of wages for weavers, time hands, spinners, shawl twisters, and wool sorters. There is some information on store accounts.

Volume 1 covers the Brandywine flannel mill of John Bancroft (1774-1852). John Bancroft used volumes 2, 3, and 4 to record his business as a lumber merchant, furniture maker, and woodworker in Manchester, England. He then brought them to America and used them to record his woolen mill business in Upper Providence Township, filling another twenty-seven volumes in this endeavor. Volumes 32 and 33 deal with Joseph Bancroft's Rockford cotton mills near Wilmington, and Volume 34 is a rent book (1895-1900) for workers' houses in Wilmington owned by Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company.

The Removals from the account books series consists of 380 items that were found laid-in to the ledgers. Among the loose papers removed from the volumes are wage records from the Todmorden Mills, label cards for Todmorden shawls, and a rent roll (1902) for Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company housing at Rockford at the Kentmere tenements.

The Joseph Bancroft's religious correspondence series consists of 230 personal letters dated between 1860 and 1868 of Joseph Bancroft, primarily developing his religious thought and his life in the Society of Friends. There are twenty-six correspondents; however, a majority (131 items) were received from Bancroft's brother-in-law, Abraham Lawton (1800-1882) of Athens, New York. Other exchanges are with relatives who remained in England, including William Darbyshire Jr., John Bright (1811-1889), and Thomas Bright (1814-1890). The letters discuss cotton manufacturing, shipping matters, the American Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln, and the Quaker's concern for abolition and peace, as well as family affairs. There are copies of religious tracts by Lawton and one by Joseph Bancroft seeking to promote unity between the Orthodox and Hicksite Friends. Thirty-two items are copies by Joseph Bancroft of his letters and minutes addressed to Friends within the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting concerning reconciliation. Among these are five minutes of Friends of Truth and five letters of advice on Quaker practice for Friends in business difficulties. The items were removed from eighty pockets within ledger 32 and have been kept in the order removed. A few pockets were empty, and a few items were found in-between pockets. The locations the materials were removed from are noted in the finding aid.