J.Bruce Ismay: Builder, Owner & Survivor of the Titanic. Was He a Hero or a Coward?

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Joseph Bruce Ismay. 1862-1937.

RMS Titanic. 1910-1912.

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Joseph Bruce Ismay, 12 December 1862 – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. In 1912, he came to international attention as the highest-ranking White Star official to survive the sinking of the company's new flagship RMS Titanic, for which he was subject to severe criticism.

Early life ~

Ismay was born in Crosby, Lancashire. He was the son of Thomas Henry 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.

Ismay's parents, Thomas Henry and Margaret Bruce Ismay.

The younger Ismay was educated at Elstree School and Harrow, then tutored in France for a year. He was apprenticed at his father's office for 4 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.

Elstree School.

On 4 December 1888, Ismay married Julia Florence Schieffelin (5 March 1867 – 31 December 1963), daughter of George Richard Schieffelin and Julia Matilda Delaplaine of New York, with whom he had five children:

Julia Florence Schieffelin Ismay.

~ Margaret Bruce Ismay (29 December 1889 – 15 May 1967), who married George Ronald Hamilton Cheape (1881–1957) in 1912.

~ Henry Bruce Ismay (3 April 1891 – 1 October 1891).

~ Thomas Bruce Ismay (18 February 1894 – 27 April 1954), who married Jane Margaret Seymour, a daughter of Walter Seymour of Ballymore Castle, County Galway, Ireland, in 1922.

~ Evelyn Constance Ismay (17 July 1897 – 9 August 1940), who married Basil Sanderson (1894–1971) in 1927.

~ George Bruce Ismay (6 June 1902 – 30 April 1943), 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. In 1901, he was approached by Americans who wished to build an international shipping conglomerate (the International Mercantile Marine Company) to which Ismay agreed to sell his firm.

Chairman of the White Star Line ~

After the death of his father on 23 November 1899, Bruce Ismay succeeded him as the chairman of the White Star Line. He decided to build four ocean liners to surpass the RMS Oceanic built by his father. The ships were dubbed the Big Four: RMS Celtic, RMS Cedric, RMS Baltic, and RMS Adriatic. These vessels were designed more for size and luxury than for speed.

In 1902, Ismay oversaw the sale of the White Star Line to J.P. Morgan & Co., which was organising the formation of International Mercantile Marine Company, an Atlantic shipping combine which absorbed several major American and British lines. IMM was a holding company that controlled subsidiary operating corporations. Morgan hoped to dominate transatlantic shipping through interlocking directorates and contractual arrangements with the railroads, but that proved impossible because of the unscheduled nature of sea transport, American antitrust legislation, and an agreement with the British government. White Star Line became one of the IMM operating companies and, in February 1904, Ismay became president of the IMM, with the support of Morgan.

RMS Titanic ~

In 1907, Ismay met Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard to discuss White Star's answer to the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Mauretania, the recently unveiled marvels of their chief competitor, Cunard Line. Ismay's new type of ship would not be as fast as their competitors, but it would have huge steerage capacity and luxury unparalleled in the history of ocean-going steamships. The latter feature was largely meant to attract the wealthy and the prosperous middle class. Three ships of the Olympic class were planned and built. They were in order RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and RMS (later HMHS) Britannic. In a move that would become highly controversial, during construction of the first two Olympic-class liners, Ismay authorized the projected number of lifeboats reduced from 48 to 16, the latter being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade, based on the RMS Olympic's tonnage.

William Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie.

Ismay occasionally accompanied his ships on their maiden voyages, and this was the case with Titanic. Ismay boarded in Southampton. During the voyage, Ismay talked with either (or possibly both) chief engineer Joseph Bell or Captain Edward J. Smith about a possible test of speed if time permitted. After the ship collided with an iceberg 370 miles south-southeast of Newfoundland on the night of 14 April 1912, it became clear that it would sink long before any rescue ships could arrive. Ismay stepped aboard Collapsible C, which was launched less than 20 minutes before the ship went down. He later testified that as the ship was in her final moments, he turned away, unable to watch. Collapsible C was picked up by the Carpathia about 3–4 hours later.

Titanic Sinking, engraving by Willy Stöwer.

After being picked up by Carpathia, Ismay was led to the cabin belonging to the ship's doctor, Frank Mcgee. He gave Captain Rostron a message to send to White Star's New York office:

"Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning fifteenth after collision iceberg, resulting serious loss life further particulars later". Bruce Ismay.

Ismay did not leave McGee's cabin for the entire journey, ate nothing solid, and was kept under the influence of opiates. Another survivor, 17-year-old Jack Thayer, visited Ismay to try to console him, despite having just lost his father in the sinking.

Jack Thayer III.

"[Ismay] was staring straight ahead, shaking like a leaf. Even when I spoke to him, he paid absolutely no attention. I have never seen a man so completely wrecked." Jack Thayer III.

When he arrived in New York, Ismay was hosted by Philip Franklin, vice president of the company. He was summoned by and testified before a Senate committee hearing headed by Republican Senator William Alden Smith the day after the arrival of Carpathia to New York. Ismay was the first witness to testify. A few weeks later, Ismay also testified at the British Board of Trade inquiry (chaired by Lord Mersey).

J. Bruce Ismay At Senate Inquiry.

Criticism ~

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 the "Coward of the Titanic " or "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. The writer Ben Hecht, then a young newspaperman in Chicago, wrote a scathing poem contrasting the actions of Captain Smith and Ismay. The final verse reads: "To hold your place in the ghastly face / of death on the sea at night / is a seaman's job, but to flee with the mob / is an owner's noble right."

Ben Hecht.

Some maintain Ismay followed the "women and children first" principle, having assisted many women and children himself. Ismay's actions were defended in the official British inquiry, which found "Mr. Ismay, after rendering assistance to many passengers, found 'C' collapsible, the last boat on the starboard side, actually being lowered. No other people were there at the time. There was room for him and he jumped in. Had he not jumped in he would merely have added one more life—namely, his own—to the number of those lost."

Ismay had boarded Collapsible C with first-class passenger William Carter; both said they did so after there were no more women and children near that particular lifeboat. Carter's own behaviour and reliability, however, were criticised by Mrs. Lucile Carter, who sued him for divorce in 1914; she testified Carter had left her and their children to fend for themselves after the collision and accused him of "cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities to the person". London society ostracized Ismay and labelled him a coward. On 30 June 1913, Ismay resigned as president of International Mercantile Marine and chairman of the White Star Line, to be succeeded by Harold Sanderson.

Ismay announced during the United States Inquiry that all the vessels of the International Mercantile Marine Company would be equipped with lifeboats in sufficient numbers for all passengers. Following the inquiry, Ismay and the surviving officers of the ship returned to England aboard RMS Adriatic.

RMS Adriatic (1906).

Titanic controversy ~

During the congressional investigations, some passengers testified that during the voyage they heard Ismay pressuring Captain Smith to increase the speed of Titanic in order to arrive in New York ahead of schedule and generate some free press about the new liner. The book The White Star Line: An Illustrated History (2000) by Paul Louden-Brown states that this was unlikely, and that Ismay's record does not support the notion that he had any motive to do so.

Ismay was widely vilified in the United States after the sinking of Titanic due to the hostility shown in the yellow press controlled by William Randolph Hearst, who had fallen out with Ismay.

William Randolph Hearst – American newspaper publisher (1863–1951). Don't let that smile fool you.

Following from the Hearst press depiction of Ismay, every subsequent film about Titanic has depicted Ismay as a villain, starting with the 1943 Nazi propaganda film Titanic where he is depicted as a corrupt British businessman who forces Captain Smith to sail Titanic recklessly at full speed into ice-infested waters in order to set a transatlantic speed record. A similar portrayal followed in the 1996 miniseries Titanic. In James Cameron's 1997 film, Ismay is often villainized due to the film's inclusion of a scene based on the eyewitness account of First Class passenger Elizabeth Lines, who after the sinking stated in a deposition that she overheard Ismay urging Captain Smith to arrive in New York ahead of schedule in order to beat the transatlantic crossing time of Titanic's sister, RMS Olympic. The scene takes place in the exact location, day, and time that Lines recalled overhearing Ismay and Smith's alleged conversation, with the character of Elizabeth Lines seen in the background, but does not specify it is Olympic's crossing time that Ismay is hoping to beat.

Jonathan Hyde played the part of J. Bruce Ismay in the 1997 film, Titanic.

Over the years, Lines's account has been questioned by historians, with some expressing doubt that it occurred. Louden-Brown, one of several consultants to the Cameron film, has stated that he thought the antagonistic characterization of Ismay was unfair, and he tried to challenge this, but regardless of Louden-Brown's opinions, it was included in the film. Louden-Brown said, "Apart from being told, 'under no circumstances are we prepared to adjust the script', one thing they also said is 'this is what the public expect to see'." Additionally, Julian Fellowes' 2012 miniseries Titanic depicts Ismay as a bigot who orders a group of non-British crew members locked below to drown during the sinking. A Titanic-themed episode of the science fiction television series Voyagers! portrayed Ismay dressing as a woman in order to sneak into a lifeboat.

Later life ~

Though cleared of blame by the official British inquiry, Ismay never recovered from the Titanic disaster. Already emotionally repressed and insecure before his voyage on Titanic, the tragedy sent him into a state of deep depression from which he never truly emerged. He kept a low profile afterwards. He lived part of the year in a large cottage, Costelloe Lodge, in the townland of Derrynea (near Casla) in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland which he bought from Henry Rudolph Laing of Cadogan Gardens, London, in January 1913, less than a year after the sinking. The purchase also included the fishing rights for the river and lake adjoining it. Paul Louden-Brown, in his history of the White Star Line, writes that Ismay continued to be active in business, and that much of his work was for The Liverpool & London Steamship Protection & Indemnity Association Limited, an insurance company founded by his father. According to Louden-Brown:

Hundreds of thousands of pounds were paid out in insurance claims to the relatives of Titanic's victims; the misery created by the disaster and its aftermath dealt with by Ismay and his directors with great fortitude, this, despite the fact that he could easily have shirked his responsibilities and resigned from the board. He stuck with the difficult task and during his twenty-five-year chairmanship hardly a page of the company's minutes does not contain some mention of the Titanic disaster.

Ismay maintained an interest 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 (approximately equivalent to £1.2 million in 2019) to set up a fund to recognize the contribution of merchant mariners in the First World War.

After the tragedy, Ismay's wife Florence ensured the subject of Titanic was never again discussed within the family. His granddaughter, historian and author Pauline Matarasso, likened her grandfather to a "corpse" in his later years:

"Having had the misfortune (one might say the misjudgement) to survive – a fact he recognized despairingly within hours – he withdrew into a silence in which his wife made herself complicit – imposing it on the family circle and thus ensuring that the subject of the Titanic was as effectively frozen as the bodies recovered from the sea."

In his personal life, Ismay became a man of solitary habits, spending his summers at his Connemara cottage and indulging in a love of trout and salmon fishing. When in Liverpool, he would attend concerts by himself at St George's Hall or visit a cinema, at other times wandering through the Liverpool parks and engaging transients in conversation. A family friend observed the spectre of Titanic was never far from Ismay's thoughts, saying that he continually "tormented himself with useless speculation as to how the disaster could possibly have been avoided." At a Christmas time family gathering in 1936, less than a year before Ismay's death, one of his grandsons by his daughter Evelyn, who had learned Ismay had been involved in maritime shipping, enquired if his grandfather had ever been shipwrecked. Ismay finally broke his quarter-century silence on the tragedy that had blighted his life, replying: "Yes, I was once in a ship which was believed to be unsinkable."

St George's Hall, Liverpool.

Death ~

Ismay's health declined in the 1930s, following a diagnosis of diabetes, which worsened in early 1936 when the illness resulted in the amputation of his right leg below the knee. He was subsequently largely confined to a wheelchair. On the morning of 14 October 1937, he collapsed in his bedroom at his residence in Mayfair, London, after suffering a massive stroke, which left him unconscious, blind and mute. Three days later, on 17 October, J. Bruce Ismay died at the age of 74.

Ismay's funeral was held at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, on 21 October 1937, and he is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, London. He left a very considerable personal estate, which, excluding property, was valued at £693,305 (approximately equivalent to £42 million in 2019). In March 1939, his wife Florence conveyed the property in Connemara unto their son George Bruce Ismay (including the fishery rights extending from the sea to the Lake of Glenicmurrin via the River Casla). After his death, Florence renounced her British subject status in order to restore her American citizenship on 14 November 1949.

St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge.

Julia Florence Ismay, née Schieffelin, died 31 December 1963, aged 96, in Kensington, London.

Portrayals ~

~ Ernst Fritz Fürbringer (1943) (Titanic).

~ Lowell Gilmore (1955) (You Are There: The Sinking of the Titanic (TV episode, 22 May 1955).

~ Frank Lawton (1958) (A Night to Remember).

~ Ian Holm (1979) (S.O.S. Titanic) (TV film).

~ Sam Chew, Jr. (1982) (Voyagers!) (Voyagers of the Titanic).

~ Roger Rees (1996) (Titanic) (TV miniseries/2 parts).

~ Jonathan Hyde (1997) (Titanic) (film).

Titanic, 1997. Jonathan Hyde as Ismay.

~ David Garrison (1997) (Titanic) (Broadway musical).

~ David Haines (2006) (Titanic) (Broadway musical – Canadian premiere).

~ Eric Braeden (1999) (The Titanic Chronicles) (TV documentary).

~ Ken Marschall (2003) (Ghosts of the Abyss) (documentary).

~ Christopher Wright (2005) (Titanic: Birth of a Legend) (TV documentary).

~Mark Tandy (2008) (The Unsinkable Titanic) (TV documentary).

~ Christopher Villiers (2011) (The Curiosity: What Sank Titanic?) (TV series).

~ James Wilby (2012) (Titanic) (TV series/4 episodes).

~ Gray O'Brien (2012) (Titanic: Blood and Steel) (TV series/12 episodes).

~ Julien Ball (2012) (Iceberg – Right Ahead!) (London stage play).

~ Michael Maloney (2012) (Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Perfidious Mariner) (audio play).

~Derek Mahon ("After the Titanic") (poem).

~ Sam Turich (2023) (Unsinkable) (film).

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Family of Titanic's owner, J Bruce Ismay, make plea ~

From: BBC News, Published: 13 April 2012, By Sarah Travers, BBC Newsline.

James Cameron's film Titanic introduced a new generation to the sequence of events leading up to the sinking of the Titanic and brought to life the key people on board and the roles they might have played once it became clear the ship was doomed.

The film portrayed the Titanic's owner Joseph Bruce Ismay as a coward for abandoning the ship while others perished.

Now descendants of Ismay, who have never been interviewed before, have spoken out to try to clear his name, 100 years after the disaster.

John Cheape and his son Malcolm live in Scotland and have given interviews exclusively to BBC Newsline.

They are the son and grandson of Ismay's eldest daughter Margaret.

Malcolm Cheape has thousands of documents relating to J Bruce Ismay.

Malcolm said: "I think that he was treated really badly by the American press - and probably not quite so badly by the British press but his story was never really told - there were a lot of lies in the American press about him escaping on the first life boat and dressing up as a woman and things like that which must have deeply hurt him. "

Ismay's actions on the sinking Titanic in 1912 became cause for endless speculation, but his family say there is no evidence to contradict his testimony given at the subsequent inquiries that he only entered one of the last lifeboats after helping load other boats and checking that there were no more women or children nearby.

Stress ~

As well as being branded a coward, Ismay faced tough questions about the speed the ship was travelling, the shortage of lifeboats and about the avoidance of iceberg warnings.

Ismay was eventually cleared of any personal wrongdoing by both inquiries.

Malcolm said that despite this, his great-grandfather never recovered from the public reaction to the disaster.

"I suspect he suffered from post traumatic stress when he arrived on the rescue ships and was certainly given morphine or some sort of medicine - I think that the fact that he was getting letters from strangers asking about what he knew about their relatives must have been very difficult in those first hours or days after the disaster and longer term, I think he must have looked back on it and wished he'd never been there."

Malcolm Cheape is in possession of thousands of documents and letters which show a very different side to J Bruce Ismay than had been portrayed in the press, including a telegram he received following the British inquiry which cleared him of blame.

There is also a letter of thanks from the new husband of an Australian stewardess called Evelyn Marsden.

Ismay had helped load her into a lifeboat saying "you are all women now" when she thought as a member of staff she should remain on the stricken vessel.

Malcolm's father John was only a small child when his grandfather J Bruce Ismay died, but he was extremely close to his grandmother Ismay's wife, Florence.

'Shattered' ~

However, a culture of silence prevailed through the generations of the family - speaking about the Titanic was always out of bounds.

John said: "My grandmother, after the disaster, would hardly speak about it and my mother didn't say a great deal either - what she did say was that it absolutely shattered his life.

"I think the whole family suffered without any doubt."

John still finds it difficult to hear people speak ill of his grandfather and asks, while the disaster was so terribly tragic, could his grandfather really have done anything to prevent it?

"I don't think there was anything he could have done - Captain Smith was the captain of the ship - he had no say in the running of the ship."

Lifeboat ~

Malcolm Cheape said that Ismay helped load the lifeboats and helped women into them for at least an hour before he himself got in the last lifeboat.

He said Ismay's decision to go into the lifeboat was probably on the "spur of the moment".

"I suspect he was asking himself the question if the opportunity arose would he take it, but once he'd taken the step his life very much changed and he had to live with that decision and I think had he not taken that decision he would have died a hero," he added.

J Bruce Ismay spent much of the rest of his life living out of the public eye in Costello in the west of Ireland before returning to London where he died in 1937.

However, his family want to remind people that without J Bruce Ismay and his father Thomas before him, tens of thousands of ship building jobs with the White Star Line would never have existed.

"The Titanic would have never been built without Bruce Ismay, almost certainly. He wasn't the man that he was portrayed - and I think that he deserves some justice now 100 years after the accident," Malcolm added.

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J. Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Line, in 1912.

J. Bruce Ismay around the age of 13.

Ismay as a young man.

Ismay walks with Capt. Edward Smith.

Ismay in his later years.

Thomas Henry Ismay receiving the freedom of Belfast in 1899. Back row, left to right, Lady Margaret Ismay, James Ismay, Dora Ismay, Bruce Ismay, Mrs T H Ismay, Mrs Bruce Ismay, Geoffrey Drage. Front row, bower Ismay, Ethel Drage, T H Ismay (sitting), Ada Ismay, Charlotte Ismay. The members of the family are mostly Bruce’s siblings (Cheape Faimly archive).

Ismay and wife in their early days aboard a ship built by Harland and Wolff shipyards.

Florence Ismay in her wedding photo.

Ismay and wife leaving ship on vacation.

Close-up of last photo.

Evelyn Constance Ismay (17 July 1897 – 9 August 1940), who married Basil Sanderson (1894–1971) in 1927.

Margaret Bruce Ismay. Daughter of J. Bruce Ismay.

Evelyn Constance Ismay Sanderson.

Ada Ismay.

Thomas Henry Ismay (1837-1899).

Thomas Henry Ismay as a young man.

Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ismay arrive at the Court.

Julian Fellowes. Author and screenwriter.

Jonathan Hyde played the part of J. Bruce Ismay in the 1997 film, Titanic.

London paperboy Ned Parfett outside the White Star Line offices.

Enfield House.

RMS Lusitania coming into port, possibly in New York, 1907-13.

RMS Mauretania on the River Tyne in 1907.

The Cunard Line's RMS Carpathia, which rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic's sinking.

Capt. Arthur H. Rostron, R.D., R.N.R, while serving as master of the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia in 1912.

Titanic on sea trials, 2 April 1912.

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912.

The iceberg.

The Sad Parting, illustration of 1912.

Lifeboat No. 15 was nearly lowered onto lifeboat No. 13 (depicted by Charles Dixon).

Imagined view of Titanic's final plunge.

Titanic sank in two hours and 40 minutes.

Collapsible lifeboat D photographed from the deck of Carpathia on the morning of 15 April 1912.

Lifeboat 6 under capacity.

Arrival of the 'ship of sorrow' at New York by L.F. Grant, 1912.

Preparations for the arrival of deceased victims in Halifax.

Wreck of the Titanic, 2004.

J. Bruce Ismay at a hearing into the disaster.

Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon's testimony was a highlight of the inquiry, attracting many society figures.

Within five days of the sinking, The New York Times published several columns relating to Ismay's conduct—concerning which "there has been so much comment". Columns included the statement of attorney Karl H. Behr indicating Ismay had helped supervise loading of passengers in lifeboats, and of William E. Carter stating that he and Ismay boarded a lifeboat only after there were no more women.

Drawing from the 1912 book Wreck and sinking of the Titanic criticising Ismay by comparing his survival to a list of notable individuals who perished with Titanic.