The business Harland and Wolff was formed in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Once Harland purchased Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. Amongst his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Also, 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 building ships. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing 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, their first venture into the civil engineering sector took place 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 almost identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.