Joseph Bruce Ismay (/ˈɪzmeɪ/;[1] 12 December 1862[2] – 17 October 1937) was an English businessman who served as chairman and managing director of the White Star Line.

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.

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 RMS Olympic's tonnage.

He gave Captain Rostron a message to send to White Star's New York office: "Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning fifteenth after collision iceberg, resulting serious loss life further particulars later".

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.

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.

[26] 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.

During the congressional investigations, some passengers testified that during the voyage they heard Ismay pressuring Captain Smith to increase the speed of 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.

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's sister, RMS Olympic.

"[29] Additionally, Julian Fellowes' 2012 miniseries Titanic depicts Ismay as a bigot who orders a group of non-British crew members locked below to drown during the sinking.

Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry into the sinking of Titanic, concluded that Ismay had helped many other passengers before finding a place for himself on the last lifeboat to leave the starboard side.

Paul Louden-Brown, in his history of the White Star Line, writes that Ismay continued to be active in business, and that much of his work was for the Liverpool & London Steamship Protection & Indemnity Association Limited, an insurance company founded by his father.

According to Louden-Brown: Hundreds of thousands of pounds were paid out in insurance claims to the relatives of Titanic's victims; the misery created by the disaster and its aftermath dealt with by Ismay and his directors with great fortitude, this, despite the fact that he could easily have shirked his responsibilities and resigned from the board.

His granddaughter, historian and author Pauline Matarasso, likened her grandfather to a "corpse" in his later years: Having had the misfortune (one might say the misjudgement) to survive – a fact he recognised despairingly within hours – he withdrew into a silence in which his wife made herself complicit – imposing it on the family circle and thus ensuring that the subject of the Titanic was as effectively frozen as the bodies recovered from the sea.

[37]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.

[38] 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.

[40] On the morning of 14 October 1937, he collapsed in his bedroom at his residence in Mayfair, London, after suffering a massive stroke, which left him unconscious, blind and mute.

[35] In March 1939, his wife Florence conveyed the property in Connemara unto their son George Bruce Ismay (including the fishery rights extending from the sea to the Lake of Glenicmurrin via the River Casla).