During 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831, established the business. During the year 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard situated 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 company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. Moreover, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The company also diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for more projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges 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. In the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their first venture 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 built to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.