Joseph Bruce Ismay (12 December 1862 – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as Managing Director of the White Star Line of steamships. He traveled on (and survived) the maiden voyage of his company's marquee ocean liner, the RMS Titanic. Bruce Ismay is typically remembered as a coward who saved himself as other heroes went down with the ship. Others see him merely as a scapegoat who had some rather influential enemies.

Biography

Early life

Ismay was born in the Liverpool suburb of Crosby, Merseyside. He was the son of Thomas Ismay (7 January 1837 – 23 November 1899) and Margaret Bruce (13 April 1837 – 9 April 1907), daughter of ship-owner Luke Bruce. Thomas Ismay was the senior partner in Ismay, Imrie and Company and the founder of the White Star Line. The younger Ismay was educated at Elstree School and Harrow, then tutored in France for a year. He apprenticed at his father's office for four years, after which he toured the world. He then went to New York City as the company representative, eventually rising to the rank of agent.

On 4 December 1888, Ismay married Julia Florence Schieffelin, daughter of George Richard Schieffelin and Julia Matilda Delaplaine of New York, with whom he had five children (one of whom died in infancy):

• Margaret Bruce Ismay (born 29 December 1889), who married George Ronald Hamilton Cheape (1881 - 1957) in 1912
• Evelyn Constance Ismay (born 17 July 1897), who married Basil Sanderson (1894 - 1971) in 1927
• George Bruce Ismay (born 6 June 1902), who married Florence Victoria Edrington in 1926

In 1891, Ismay returned with his family to the United Kingdom and became a partner in his father's firm, Ismay, Imrie and Company. In 1899, Thomas Ismay died, and Bruce Ismay became head of the family business. Ismay had a head for business, and the White Star Line flourished under his leadership. In addition to running his ship business, Ismay also served as a director of several other companies. However, in 1901, he was approached by Americans who wished to build an international shipping conglomerate. Ismay agreed to merge his firm into the International Mercantile Marine Company.

RMS Titanic

In 1907, Ismay met with Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipbuilding company of Belfast. Together, they planned to build a steamer that would outdo the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Mauretania, the recently-unveiled marvels of White Star's chief competitor, Cunard Line. Ismay's new type of ship would not only be fast, it would also have huge steerage capacity and luxury unparalleled in the history of oceangoing steamships. The latter condition was largely meant to woo the wealthy and the prosperous middle class. To accommodate the luxurious features Ismay ordered the number of lifeboats reduced from 48 down to 16, the latter being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade, based on the Titanic's projected tonnage. Three ships were planned and built. The second of these would be White Star Line's pride and joy, the RMS Titanic, which began its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, on 10 April 1912. The first and third ships of this class were the RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic, which the firm had originally intended to name Gigantic.

Ismay occasionally accompanied his ships on their maiden voyages, and Titanic was one of them. When the ship hit an iceberg 400 miles south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and started sinking on the night of 14 April 1912, Ismay was rescued in Collapsible Lifeboat C. Reports (resulting from his personal testimony) say that as the ship was in her final moments, Ismay turned away, unable to watch his creation sink beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. He was taken aboard the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia and arrived in New York on 18 April. Ismay later testified at Titanic disaster inquiry hearings held by both the U.S. Senate (chaired by Senator William Alden Smith) the following day, and the British Board of Trade (chaired by Lord Mersey) a few weeks later.

After being picked up by the Carpathia, Ismay was led to the cabin belonging to the ship's doctor, which he reportedly did not leave for the entire journey. He ate nothing solid, received only a single visitor, and was kept under the influence of opiates.

After the disaster, Ismay was savaged by both the American and the British press for deserting the ship while women and children were still on board. Some papers called him "J. Brute Ismay" and suggested that the White Star flag be changed to a yellow liver. Some ran negative cartoons depicting him deserting the ship. He followed the "women and children first" principle, having assisted many women and children himself. He and first-class passenger William Carter boarded lifeboat C only after there were no more women and children near that lifeboat, and it was also the last lifeboat to leave Titanic. The objective of "women and children first" was to ensure that lifeboats were first filled with women and children, and that men could occupy any remaining places if available. It was not intended to prevent men from being saved altogether. London society ostracised him and labelled him one of the biggest cowards in history. Strong negative press came particularly from newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who is said to have had a personal vendetta against Ismay. On 30 June 1913, Ismay resigned as president of International Mercantile Marine and chairman to the White Star Line, to be succeeded by Harold Sanderson.

Although his reputation was irreparably damaged and he maintained a low public profile after the disaster, Ismay did continue to be active in maritime affairs. He inaugurated a cadet ship called Mersey used to train officers for Britain's Merchant Navy, donated £11,000 to start a fund for lost seamen, and in 1919 gave £25,000 to set up a fund to recognise the contribution of merchant mariners in World War I.

Ismay's son-in-law, George Cheape, was a brother of Mrs. Albert Jaffray Cay, the former Miss Catherine Beatrice Cheape (1875-1914), who perished in another famous shipwreck of the 20th century, the sinking on 29 May 1914, of the Canadian Pacific ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland in the waters of Saint Lawrence River .

Later life

Ismay kept out of the public eye for most of the remainder of his life. He retired from active affairs in the mid-1920s, and settled with his wife in a cottage near Costelloe in County Galway, Ireland. His health declined in the 1930s, following a diagnosis of diabetes, which took a turn for the worse in early 1936, when the illness resulted in amputation of part of his right leg. He returned to England a few months later, settling in a small house on the Wirral across the River Mersey from Liverpool. J. Bruce Ismay died in Mayfair, London, on 17 October 1937, of a cerebral thrombosis, at the age of 74. His funeral was held on 21 October 1937, and he is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, London. He was survived by his wife, Julia Schieffelin. After his death, Schieffelin renounced her British citizenship to become an American citizen on 14 November 1949. Julia Florence Ismay, née Schieffelin, eventually died 31 December 1963, aged 92, in Kensington, London.

Portrayals

J. Bruce Ismay has been played by many actors in different versions of the Titanic story.

• 1943 German film Titanic, portrayed by actor Ernst Fritz Fürbringer.
• 1958 British film A Night to Remember, portrayed by actor Frank Lawton.
• 1979 British/American TV-film S.O.S. Titanic, portrayed by actor Ian Holm.
• 1982 American TV series Voyagers! in the episode Voyagers of the Titanic, portrayed by actor Sam Chew, Jr..
• 1985 American documentary TV series "Secrets of the Unknown". Reinactment portrayed by an unknown actor and filmed on location aboard the preserved Cunard-White Star Line ship Queen Mary.
• 1996 American TV mini-series Titanic, portrayed by actor Roger Rees.
• 1997 American film Titanic, portrayed by actor Jonathan Hyde.
• 1997 American musical "Titanic," criticized for influencing the design and travel procedures inordinately to accommodate the first class
• 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, portrayed by maritime artist Ken Marschall
• 2008 documentary The Unsinkable Titanic, portrayed by actor Mark Tandy

He is also referenced in Derek Mahon's poem 'After the Titanic'.

In all versions, Ismay is portrayed as a somewhat arrogant businessman who persuades the crew of the Titanic to speed the ship up. Upon learning of the ship's fate, he always says, "This Ship Can't Sink!", to which the people around him look at him in disgust and tell him that it is going to. He later panics when he realizes the ship is sinking and gets yelled at by 5th Officer Lowe for trying to speed up the lowering of one of the lifeboats. He later forces himself into one of the last lifeboats to leave the Titanic, and he always turns away from looking at the sinking Titanic during the ship's final plunge into the ocean. When he arrives on the Carpathia, he is like a damned soul and realizes his guilt for causing the Titanic to sink.

Controversy

There are a number of controversies concerning Ismay's actions on board the Titanic.

During the congressional investigations, some passengers testified that during the voyage they heard Ismay pressuring Captain Edward J. Smith to go faster, in order to arrive in New York ahead of schedule and generate some free press about the new liner. One passenger claimed to have seen Ismay flaunting one of the iceberg warnings at dinner time, waving it around, then placing it back in his pocket. However these claims are not supported by evidence from any of the surviving officers. The testimony of some passengers is regarded as, at best, unreliable, and, at worst, invention.

External links

• Article on Ismay and the Titanic

References