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J. Bruce Ismay

Adventurer · ages 7–10Adapted from Wikipedia
J. Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Line, photographed in 1912.

Joseph Bruce Ismay was an English businessman and shipowner. He was born on 12 December 1862 and died on 17 October 1937. He was the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. He was also president of the International Mercantile Marine Company until he retired in 1913.

Ismay took over the White Star Line after his father, Thomas Ismay, died in 1900. In 1904, he helped start the International Mercantile Marine Company, a business group paid for by J. P. Morgan. Under Ismay, the White Star Line began to focus on comfort and size instead of speed. He helped create the Big Four-class, which were the largest ships of their kind at the time.

The rival Cunard Line built the RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, which were the largest and fastest ships in the world. After that, Ismay approved the building of the Olympic-class. He also ordered three large ships that were designed for comfort and safety. The first two were the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic. Ismay sailed as a passenger on both ships on their first voyages.

Ismay was on the Titanic when it hit an iceberg and was lost. He was the highest-ranking White Star official to survive the ship's sinking. He got into one of the last boats that was launched safely, Collapsible Boat C. Afterward, many people in the press criticised him for surviving, and his reputation did not fully recover during his lifetime.

Ismay stayed active in public life after he left the White Star Line. He took on many business ventures and did charity work. Late in his life, he was diagnosed with diabetes, and one of his legs had to be removed. He died in October 1937, shortly after a stroke. He is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery in London.

Early life

Joseph Bruce Ismay was born on 12 December 1862 in Crosby, Lancashire. His father, Thomas Henry Ismay, was the senior partner in Ismay, Imrie and Company and the founder of the White Star Line. His mother, Margaret Bruce, was the daughter of ship-owner Luke Bruce. As a young man, Thomas Ismay played football and was a member of the Liverpool Ramblers A.F.C. club. Bruce Ismay went to school at Elstree School and Harrow. He then spent a year learning from a private teacher in France. He worked for four years in his father's office and then travelled around the world. He went to New York City for the company and later became an agent there. In 1888 he married Julia Florence Schieffelin, the daughter of George Richard Schieffelin. They had five children. Their daughter Evelyn married Basil Sanderson, the son of fellow shipowner Harold Sanderson. Their son Thomas married Jane Margaret Seymour. Her father, Walter Seymour, came from Ballymore Castle, in County Galway, Ireland.

In 1891, Ismay moved back with his family to the United Kingdom and became a partner in his father's firm. When Thomas Ismay died in 1899, Bruce Ismay became the head of the family business. The White Star Line grew strong under his leadership. In 1901, some Americans asked him to help build a large international shipping conglomerate, which would be called the International Mercantile Marine Company. Ismay agreed to sell his firm to it.

Chairman of the White Star Line

After his father died on 23 November 1899, Bruce Ismay became chairman of the White Star Line. He planned to build four ocean liners that would be bigger than the RMS Oceanic his father had built. These ships were called the Big Four: RMS Celtic, RMS Cedric, RMS Baltic, and RMS Adriatic. They were built to be large and comfortable more than to be fast.

In 1902, Ismay helped sell the White Star Line to J.P. Morgan & Co.. Morgan was forming the International Mercantile Marine Company, a company that owned several large shipping lines in America and Britain. White Star Line became one of its companies that ran ships. Morgan hoped to control shipping across the Atlantic, but this did not work out. In February 1904, with Morgan's support, Ismay became president of the company.

RMS Titanic

Main article: Sinking of the Titanic

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 passenger Karl 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.

In 1907, Ismay met Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard to talk about White Star's answer to the RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. These were new ships from their main rival, the Cunard Line. Ismay's ships would not be as fast, but they would have a large steerage area and many luxuries. Three ships of the Olympic class were planned and built: RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic, and HMHS Britannic.

Ismay sometimes sailed on a ship's first voyage, and he did this on the Titanic. He boarded in Southampton. On the night of 14 April 1912, the ship hit an iceberg. It soon became clear that it would sink before rescue ships could arrive. Ismay got into Collapsible C, a lifeboat that was lowered less than 20 minutes before the ship sank. The Carpathia picked it up a few hours later. In New York, Ismay was the first witness at a Senate committee hearing led by Republican Senator William Alden Smith. A few weeks later, he also spoke at a British Board of Trade inquiry, chaired by Lord Mersey.

Criticism and controversy

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

After the Titanic sank, newspapers in the United States and Britain criticized Ismay for leaving the ship while women and children were still on board. Some people called him a coward, and some newspapers printed cartoons showing him running away from the ship. The writer Ben Hecht, then a young newspaperman in Chicago, wrote a poem that compared Captain Smith and Ismay. Others believe Ismay followed the "women and children first" rule, since he helped many women and children himself. The official British inquiry defended him. It found that he had helped many passengers before he got into the last lifeboat on the right side of the ship, which had room for him. During the United States inquiry, Ismay announced that all the ships of the International Mercantile Marine Company would carry enough lifeboats for every passenger. He and the surviving officers then went back to England on RMS Adriatic.

During the congressional investigations, some passengers said they heard Ismay asking Captain Smith to speed up the ship so it could reach New York early. The book The White Star Line: An Illustrated History (2000) by Paul Louden-Brown says this was unlikely. Ismay was also widely disliked in the United States because of the yellow press controlled by William Randolph Hearst, who had fallen out with him. Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry into the sinking of Titanic, concluded that Ismay had helped many other passengers. On 30 June 1913, Ismay resigned as president of International Mercantile Marine and chairman of the White Star Line. Harold Sanderson took his place.

Later life and death

Ismay's family grave at Putney Vale Cemetery, London (2014) Gravestone inscriptions:They that go down to the seain ships and occupy theirbusiness in great watersThese men see the works of theLord and His wonders in the deepTo the glory of God and in memory ofBruce Ismay died October 17, 1937his wife Julia Florence Ismaydied December 31, 1963

An official British inquiry said Ismay was not to blame, but he never recovered from the Titanic disaster. He was already shy and unsure of himself before the voyage, and the tragedy left him very sad for a long time. He kept a low profile afterwards. He spent part of each year at a large cottage, Costelloe Lodge, near Casla in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, which he bought in January 1913. He kept working, mostly for the Liverpool & London Steamship Protection & Indemnity Association, an insurance company started by his father. Large sums of money were paid to the families of the people who died on Titanic. Ismay also helped sea life. He started a training ship for officers in Britain's Merchant Navy, gave money to a fund for lost seamen, and in 1919 set up a fund to honour merchant sailors in the First World War.

Ismay lived a quiet, lonely life. He spent his summers in Connemara, where he enjoyed fishing for trout and salmon. In Liverpool, he went to concerts alone at St George's Hall. He often thought about the Titanic, and his family rarely spoke of it. In 1936, he finally told a grandson, "Yes, I was once in a ship which was believed to be unsinkable." That same year, his health got worse because of diabetes. One of his legs was removed below the knee, so he often used a wheelchair. In October 1937, he collapsed at his home in Mayfair, London, after a stroke. He died three days later, aged 74. His funeral was held at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, and he was buried at Putney Vale Cemetery in London.

Portrayals

Many films about Titanic have shown Ismay in an unfavorable way, often as a villain. This started with the 1943 Nazi propaganda film Titanic. In that film, he is a dishonest British businessman who makes Captain Smith sail the ship recklessly at full speed into icy waters to set a transatlantic speed record. A similar portrayal appeared in the 1996 miniseries. Julian Fellowes' 2012 miniseries shows Ismay as a bigot, a person who is unfairly prejudiced against others. In this show, he orders non-British crew members to be locked below during the sinking.

James Cameron's 1997 film includes a scene based on the account of First Class passenger Elizabeth Lines. After the sinking, she said in a sworn statement that she heard Ismay urging Captain Smith to reach New York early, to beat the crossing time of Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic. Historians have questioned Lines's account over the years, and some doubt that it happened. Louden-Brown, one of several consultants on the Cameron film, felt the harsh portrayal of Ismay was unfair and tried to change it, but it was included anyway. He 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'."

Keep exploring

White Star Line
Titanic
Sinking of the Titanic
Diabetes
England
New York City

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on J. Bruce Ismay, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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