When the Titanic hit the iceberg on 14 April 1912 and a thousand men prepared to die, J Bruce Ismay, the ship’s owner, jumped into a lifeboat with the women and children and rowed away to safety. Accused of cowardice, Ismay became the first victim of a press hate campaign and his reputation never recovered. Frances Wilson explains how she sought out the reasons behind Ismay's jump, his desperate need to make sense of the horror of it all, and his attempt to find a way of living with lost honour.
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A3
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