During 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, established the company. 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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. Also, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to concentrate more on structural design and engineering and less on shipbuilding. The business even diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for additional projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be constructed in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges consist of the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector took place with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
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 which was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.