The Backstory: Titanic’s Boss: Bad Guy . . Or Victim of Bad Press

Bruce Ismay ran the White Star Line but managed to save himself from the sinking of the Titanic by hopping into a lifeboat. Was he a coward . . or simply canceled by vicious press? His granddaughter said the greatest tragedy of Ismay's life . . was surviving.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay. Imagine you're on a sinking ship in the North
Atlantic on a freezing cold night. You see an opportunity
to get on a lifeboat to save your life. Problem is,
you're the guy who runs the company that owns the
giant boat, your Bruce is May, chairman of the White
Star Line, and you're on the maiden voyage of the
doomed RMS Titanic. I'm Patty Steele. Did Is May sneak

(00:23):
onto a lifeboat to save himself or was he the
victim of fake news from a vicious press. That's next
on the back story. We're back with the back story.
It's a bitterly cold, but crystal clear April night in
the North Atlantic Sea. The biggest, most luxurious cruise ship

(00:43):
ever built is on its maiden voyage from the UK
to New York City. On board some of the wealthiest,
most powerful people on Earth, along with the ship's designer,
Thomas Andrews and the chairman of the company that owns
Titanic White Stars, Bruce is May. Everybody wanted to be
a part of the RMS Titanic's maiden voyage. It was

(01:04):
outfitted with crystal chandeliers, spectacular carved woodwork and fantastic food
and service. No expense was spared. Even the third or
steerage class accommodations were way beyond anybody's expectations. The ship
was a work of art, and on top of that,
it was said to be completely unsinkable. And that's where

(01:26):
the trouble began. The White Star Line had been sold
to J. P. Morgan Company, which was looking to make
a bundle of money off this glamorous ship, as well
as her sister ships, the Olympic and the Britannic. The
ships were more luxurious than any passenger ships to date,
and Titanic was looking to get to New York in
record time, but a mass of iceberg stopped Titanic dead

(01:50):
in its tracks. Problem is, in order to keep the
ship as beautiful, light weight, and fast as possible, they
had to pay attention to its weight. It was carrying
two hundred twenty four passengers and crew on this first voyage,
but the big, wooden, cumbersome lifeboats seemed unnecessary to some
since they were on board a ship that was unsinkable,

(02:12):
and the naysayers apparently included Bruce Imy. J P. Morgan
wanted the ship's maiden voyage to prove it could get
across the Atlantic in record time. Records show that Bruce
Imy ordered the number of lifeboats for the more than
twenty two hundred souls be reduced from forty eight to
just sixteen, the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade.

(02:34):
That allowed room on the lifeboats for only about half
of the people that were on board the ship for
this trip. Okay, let's go back and get a little
history about Bruce Ismay himself. His father was the founder
of the White Star Line. His grandfather on his mother's
side was a shipowner, and later his mother in law
was an American who came from a powerful shipping family

(02:56):
in New York. The Della Planes ships were in the
family's blood. After his father died in eighteen ninety nine,
Bruce took over the company and was really successful. Several
years later, he agreed to sell to the JP Morgan Company,
although he would still run the company. Problem is, Bruce
Ismay was dealing with depression even before the Titanic disaster.

(03:19):
There are various stories about what happened late on the
night of April fourteenth, nineteen twelve. Some passengers said that
during the voyage, Ismay had pushed the ship's captain about
a possible test of speed if time permitted. He was
anxious to prove that the ship wasn't just luxurious but
also incredibly fast. When the ship hit the iceberg at

(03:41):
eleven forty PM, all hell broke loose. There was a
rush to the lifeboats, but in the panic, many of
them were launched less than half full. In the end,
only about seven hundred people survived, with more than fifteen
hundred dead. So how did Ismay wind up on a
life when so many people were left behind, including many

(04:03):
women and children. Some said he slipped in unnoticed. On
the other hand, in the hearings after the disaster, some
White Star officials testified that Ismay had worked tirelessly for
over two hours helping women and children into lifeboats, and
only jumped into the last lifeboat available when there were
no women or children left in his part of the ship.

(04:26):
Ismay later testified that as the ship was finally sinking,
he turned away he just couldn't watch. His lifeboat was
picked up four hours later by another ship, the Carpathia,
and he was taken to the ship's doctor. He had
a message sent to White Star's New York office, simply saying,
deeply regret to advise you. Titanic sank this morning after

(04:48):
collision with Iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Further
particulars later Bruce Ismay. Those on board the Carpathia say
Ismay didn't leave the cabin for the entire trip to
New York City. He ate nothing and was on opiates
the whole time. Another survivor said Ismay was staring straight ahead,

(05:09):
shaking like a leaf, responding to no one. He said,
even when I spoke to him, he paid absolutely no attention.
I have never seen a man so completely wrecked. Problem is,
Ismay had a terrible relationship with one of the most
powerful people in the press, William Randolph Hurst. And Hurst
went after him with no holds barred. All his newspapers

(05:32):
called Ismay the coward of the Titanic. They blamed him
for the disaster and then vilified him for slipping into
a lifeboat. Within a year, Ismay resigned as chairman of
the company, although he stayed on the board of directors.
His life was a mess from then on. The depression
he'd already suffered from intensified while he worked hard to

(05:54):
do the right thing by the families of the Titanic victims.
He spent most of his time at his home in
the Irish countryside. His wife, attempting to help him, refused
to let anyone, including family members, ever speak about the
disaster or even mention the name Titanic. Meantime, London's society
ostracized him and labeled him a coward, and every film

(06:16):
about Titanic has cast Ismay as a villain, starting with
the nineteen forty three Nazi propaganda film Titanic on through
to James Cameron's massive success with the nineteen ninety seven
film also called Titanic. While the official British inquiry into
the sinking cleared him, finding he'd done everything he could
to help others before helping himself, he never got past

(06:40):
the stigma. His depression deepened and never healed. Bruce Ismay
spent a lot of his post disaster life at his
Irish country house, fishing, wandering alone through the little town,
and going to the movies by himself. Again, his wife
allowed no one to speak of the Titanic disaster, so
he was alone with his pain and his memories. At

(07:03):
a family gathering, before Christmas in nineteen thirty six, a
few months before his death, one of Ismay's grandsons, who
recently discovered his grandfather had been involved in maritime shipping,
of course, knew nothing about the disaster, asked him if
he'd ever been shipwrecked for the first time in twenty
five years. Ismay spoke of that tragedy, saying, yes, I

(07:26):
was once in a ship which was believed to be unsinkable.
Bruce Ismay died of a massive stroke in October of
nineteen thirty six. He was seventy four years old. His
wife died in nineteen sixty three at the age of
ninety six, and never spoke of the Titanic disaster. What
do you think? Do you think he had a responsibility

(07:46):
to simply go down with the ship? Bruce Ismay's granddaughter
said he was like a corpse. In later years, she
said his greatest misfortune, or perhaps misjudgment, was that he survived.
Hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
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(08:09):
also feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
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The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the

(08:29):
Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is
Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes
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Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks
for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces

(08:50):
of history you didn't know you needed to know.