The business Harland and Wolff was formed in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. During the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Harland at one time purchased 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 built were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Additionally, he was able to increase the ship's capacity 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 decided to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business even diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector occurred with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was among six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.