The company Harland and Wolff was formed in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. During the year 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
When Harland purchased 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 the brand new shipyard made were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. Among his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. Furthermore, 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 eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The business also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more 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 comprise the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their first foray into the civil engineering sector occurred.
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. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.