In the year 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, established the business. During 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which the brand new shipyard built were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. In addition, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on shipbuilding. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for additional projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be constructed in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges include the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, their first venture into the civil engineering sector took place with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during 2003, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.