The business Harland and Wolff was formed in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Harland at one time bought Hickson's shipyard and made his assistant Wolff a partner in the company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. One of his famous suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. In addition, 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 were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on building ships. The business even diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for additional projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges include the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their first venture into the civil engineering sector took place.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. In the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.