The company Harland and Wolff was formed during the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831. In the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Harland at one time bought 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 heavily 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. Amongst his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Additionally, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
The company eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to focus less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The company also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for more projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their first foray into the civil engineering sector happened.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.