Hello and welcome to day three of Titanic Week our short series where we're exposing a few of
the myths given to us by movies and pop culture to a bit of sunlight and a bit of closer scrutiny.
Now another of the timeless images that the subsequent films and popular culture drags from the Titanic
disaster is that of White Star Chairman J Bruce Ismay and his portrayal as possibly the ultimate
despicable villain and coward. There's no retelling of the tale of the Titanic that puts him in any
sort of good light at all. He's usually portrayed as a coward, and somewhat of a lesser man, even in
our modern times. Or as a control freak that values good press more than third class lives, or in some
cases both. The 2012 mini-series from Downton Abbey and Gosford Park creator Julian Fellowes portrayed
him as a bully who forces the captain to increase speed, and then jumps into the first available
lifeboat. Bizarrely he only gets a slightly worse portrayal from actual bona fide Nazis.
In 1942 Goebbels commissioned a retelling of the Titanic disaster with a view to painting it as
all the fault of greedy British capitalists wanting to achieve record-breaking speeds,
with his version of Ismay being a ruthless Jewish businessman bribing the captain with
one thousand dollars per hour that Titanic arrives early. The slandering of Ismay started
as soon as the disaster was over but there's actually not much factual evidence to support it.
And before we get into the gritty details of the various accusations let's get one
right out of the way. The idea that Ismay and/or Captain Smith were hell-bent on breaking the
westward atlantic speed record and claiming the Blue Riband is just nonsense. Absolute utter bunkum.
That record was set by Cunard's Mauretania in September 1909, when she made the journey in
four days 10 hours and 51 minutes at an average speed of 26 knots. Titanic couldn't match this.
Mauretania's average speed was 26 knots. Titanic's top speed was 23 knots, and both Smith and Ismay
knew it. They knew it because like all other vessels Titanic had had sea trials where they
measure this sort of thing. The record was never an option. Now staying with speed though it's often
said that Ismay was pressuring Captain Smith into maintaining maximum speed possible in order to
get into New York a day early and therefore gain phenomenally good press coverage for the company
and that doing this was a contributory factor in the disaster. But we can't just take this at face
value. There's a lot about this that is just highly unlikely. so let's examine a few points.
First of all getting into New York a day early would have caused no end of problems your first
and second class passengers that were visiting the US would suddenly need to get themselves
hotels for an extra night, which is not something that could be efficiently sorted out from the sea.
First and second class passengers that did live in the US would also have to rearrange
the people who would be coming to greet them at the harbour, and then there's also the issue of
rearranging transport out of New York for those arrivals.
If this was going on you would think someone would have sent a telegram suggesting an alternative
time of arrival, but nothing from the radio room supports that at all...
...and that's just first and second class passengers, not to mention that all third-class passengers,
which was more than half of them, would need to have disembarked to Ellis Island
to pass through US immigration which meant arranging the necessary barges and ferries
to take them from Titanic to the Ellis Island dock, because it couldn't accommodate a liner that large.
That, and the fact that arriving early would mean that Ellis Island wasn't
ready for them, which then means them waiting possibly overnight at White Star's expense.
Basically Ismay was a businessman and therefore he knew the value of good service, reliability,
and most of all don't massively inconvenience your entire paying customer base! Especially if
you want them to book on return journeys. You're not successful just by getting customers, you
have to keep them loyal as well. In short any good press coverage would likely have been minimal and
short-lived and just not worth the reputational damage caused by passenger inconvenience. It's
counterproductive to the "luxury, comfort, and style" message that White Star was marketing
and so i just can't imagine Ismay going after it in this way.
Plus from previous maiden voyages this was just not Ismay's style. He wasn't that sort of outgoing,
audience orientated fellow. This was his third maiden voyage and when talking to the press
about the prior maiden voyage of sister ship Olympic, that was built on just as grand a scale,
he just answered questions about engines and fittings and costs and plans. There was little
difference between Olympic and Titanic and you would expect the same level of fanfare in each.
And that's exactly what Ismay was about there was no fanfare, a very lacklustre approach.
As for the idea he was pressuring Captain Smith into behaving recklessly... Well Edward J Smith was
probably the most experienced highly paid and respected maritime commander in the country.
The very concept that Smith would have taken orders from anyone and endangered his ship
just to get some good press writing for a businessman is ridiculous. What was he going to do?
Fire him mid voyage? We can blame Smith for a lot of things, and we can. But caving to bullying from Ismay?
i just don't buy it. And then lastly let's take a look at the idea of cowardice and jumping in
the first lifeboat going. Well he didn't. Survivor after survivor gave testament to ismay assisting
with the filling and the lowering of lifeboats. All the films show him just jumping into a regular
lifeboat and hoping that nobody notices and that's just not how he left. He left on Collapsible Boat C.
That was launched at five past two in the morning. It was the last lifeboat to be launched from the
starboard side. Twelve minutes later the other starboard collapsible was swept into the sea
by the water coming over the top of the bridge, which should give you a good idea as to how long
he waited before leaving. It was being lowered with 43 people in it it had a capacity for 45. Pretty
much everyone else had gone to the stern. So with space, and might i add permission, Ismay got on.
Understandably after the disaster people searched for answers,
scapegoats, and culprits, and the American press was not going to be kind to Ismay.
Much of the reason for this was that an awful lot of the American press was syndicated through
William Randolph Hearst who absolutely hated Ismay. As his new newspapers came out the
quickest, and the most widespread his editorial line of "J. Brute Ismay - Coward of the Titanic"
was easily cemented into a popular narrative that even today gets treated as a fact.
It's worth noting that Ismay testified to both the US and the British inquiries into the disaster and
was exonerated by both. Lord Mersey concluded that Ismay had acquitted himself admirably
and had helped many other passengers before finding a place for himself on the last lifeboat
to leave the starboard side. He added "had he not jumped in he would have simply added one more life,
namely his own, to the number of those lost."
and that, at the end of the day, was Ismay's crime. He survived. And it was a crime he never stopped
punishing himself for. So the next time you're watching one of the range of excellent movies
about the Titanic disaster please spare Chairman Ismay a positive thought in your mind thank you