During the year 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, established the company. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Once Harland bought Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that were built by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Amongst his well-known ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. What's more, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on building ships. The company even diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be built in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges consist of the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.