The business Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased 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 initial 3 ships which the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. One of his well-known suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Moreover, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The company eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The business 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 building 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. During the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector occurred.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. During the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.