Жозеф Брюс Измай: Англия кәсіпкерінің өмірі мен қызметі

English businessman (1862–1937)

Joseph Bruce Ismay ('/ɪ//z//m//eɪ/; 12 December 1862 – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. 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. 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:
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. Bruce Ismay succeeded him as the chairman of the White Star Line. He decided to build four ocean liners to surpass the built by his father. The ships were dubbed the Big Four: , , , and 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.

In 1907, Ismay met Lord Pirrie of the Harland & Wolff shipyard to discuss White Star's answer to the and the , 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 were planned and built. They were in order , and RMS (later HMHS) In a move that would become highly controversial, during construction of the first two Olympic class liners, Ismay authorised the projected number of lifeboats reduced from 48 to 16, the latter being the minimum allowed by the Board of Trade, based on the 's tonnage. Ismay occasionally accompanied his ships on their maiden voyages, and this was the case with the Titanic. 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 about 3–4 hours later. After being picked up by the 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:
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. 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 the 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).

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." 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 ostracised 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 .

During the congressional investigations, some passengers testified that during the voyage they heard Ismay pressuring Captain Smith to increase the speed of the 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 the Titanic due to the hostility shown in the yellow press controlled by William Randolph Hearst, who had fallen out with Ismay. Following from the Hearst press depiction of Ismay, every subsequent film about the 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 sister, 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 the Olympic crossing time that Ismay is hoping to beat. 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'." 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:

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."