In the year 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831, formed the business. In the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
When Harland purchased 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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Amongst his famous ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. As well, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to concentrate less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The company 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.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of 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 foray 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 that was constructed to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during 2003, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.