“J. BRUCE ISMAY died on the night of 14-15 April 1912, and died again in his bedroom twenty-five years later. He was mired in the moment of his jump; his life was defined by a decision he made in an instant. Other survivors of the Titanic were able, in varying degrees, to pick themselves up and move on, but Ismay was not. His was now a posthumous existence.” — Frances Wilson, How to Survive the Titanic: or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
Although the societal consequences wrought upon Ismay by his survival of the Titanic - namely the destruction of his reputation and career — are well known, few pause to consider the mental and emotional impact suffered by the man himself in the wake of this infamous maritime tragedy. Ismay returned home to Liverpool an understandably " sea-changed " man, and was never quite able to return to the individual he once had been. A newspaper headline dubbed him " The Most Talked of Man in All the World", but J. Bruce Ismay also became the loneliest man in the world. His sleep was plagued by nightmares that “woke the house”. The damage to his reputation forced Ismay into a life of " being rather than doing ", resulting in a near-crippling anxiety about the future. Ironically, his family remained oblivious to an extent regarding this; in their eyes, Ismay was shouldering the blame with the stoicism and firm resolve of a soldier. It was only in later years that the younger generation of Ismays realized the sheer devastation that Bruce experienced during his life — his granddaughter Evelyn later admitted that " my grandfather Ismay was a corpse himself. "
