In the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, established the business. In 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Harland at one time bought Hickson's shipyard and made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested mostly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which the brand new shipyard made were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. Amongst his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. As well, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
Harland and Wolff were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business even diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges include the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector happened.
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 during 2003, after being constructed under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.