Titanic: What Happened To Ismay After The Ship Sank (& Was He Blamed?)

Titanic mixes historical facts with a lot of fictional details, and among the characters based on real-life people is J. Bruce Ismay, who in the movie is portrayed as an ambitious man and a coward – but what happened to him after the Titanic sank and was he blamed for the tragedy? James Cameron is best known for his big-budget productions and his work on the sci-fi genre, thanks to movies like The Terminator and Avatar, but one of his biggest and most popular projects wasn’t from this genre: Titanic, a disaster drama movie released in 1997.

Based on the accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, Titanic tells the story of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), two passengers from very different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Although Rose and Jack’s story is fictional, throughout Titanic they come across characters based on real-life people who were on board the ship, and many of them were actively involved in the Titanic project, as was the case of J. Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde), who even though appeared briefly and sporadically throughout the movie, was established as one of the biggest cowards in the story.

J. Bruce Ismay was the chairman and managing director of the White Line Star, the shipping company behind the Titanic. His father, Thomas Ismay, was the founder of White Star Line, and Bruce took over after Thomas’ death. The company flourished under his leadership, and in 1907, he met with Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard to discuss White Star’s answer to the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Mauretania, which resulted in a new type of ship with huge steerage capacity and over-the-top luxury to attract the wealthy and the prosperous middle class. Three ships of the Olympic class were built, and one of those was the Titanic, and during its construction (and that of the RMS Olympic), Ismay authorized the projected number of lifeboats to be reduced from 48 to 16, a move for which he was heavily criticized for years.

As shown in Titanic, Ismay talked to Captain Edward J. Smith and/or chief engineer Joseph Bell about going faster in order to get favorable press attention, and just like in the movie, he quickly made his way to one of the lifeboats. Ismay reportedly boarded Collapsible C, launched less than 20 minutes before the ship went down, and so became one of the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic. The boat was picked up by the Carpathia hours later, Ismay was taken to the ship’s doctor, and didn’t leave his cabin for the rest of the trip, and he was reportedly in a deep state of shock. Ismay was heavily criticized by the press and labeled the “Coward of the Titanic” for leaving the ship while there were still women and children on board, yet others claimed that he followed the “women and children first” principle, and as Collapsible C still had room, he jumped in.

While Ismay was cleared of blame by the official British inquiry, he never recovered from the shocking experience and all the backlash that came after it. Ismay fell into a deep depression and kept a low profile in the years that followed the sinking of the Titanic, and the subject of the Titanic was to not be mentioned within his family. Ismay continued working in maritime affairs, and he passed away in 1937 after complications from diabetes and a massive stroke. J. Bruce Ismay made controversial decisions during the building of the Titanic and during the trip (that, of course, if he truly pressured the captain to speed up), and the rest of his life was marked by the tragedy at a deeper level as he (according to family friends) continued to “torment himself” with speculation over how the sinking of the Titanic could have been avoided.

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Adrienne Tyler
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Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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