During the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, established the business. In the year 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard located 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 were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. One of his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. As well, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
The business eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding sector causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to concentrate less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The company also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for additional projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges 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. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector occurred.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during the year 2003, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.