During 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, formed the business. In the year 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard 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 company. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested mostly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that were built by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. One of his famous ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength by using iron for the upper wodden decks. In addition, he was able to increase the ship's capacity 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 broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The business even diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects 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 constructed in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During 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 near identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.