During the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831, established the business. In the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
When Harland purchased Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that the brand new shipyard built were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. Among his famous ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. As well, 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 chose to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business 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.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of 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 took place.
Today, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.