During the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831, established the company. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought 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 company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. 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 business a successful venture. Amongst his well-known ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Furthermore, 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 broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided 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 additional projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be built in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges include the restoration of Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
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 to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.