The business Harland and Wolff was established 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 the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. One of his well-known suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Furthermore, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The business eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided 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 additional projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges include 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 happened.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. In the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.