In 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, established the business. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard located 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 company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. One of his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. In addition, 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 building ships. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector occurred with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.