The company Harland and Wolff was established in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. In 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Harland at one time purchased 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 mostly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were built by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the company a successful venture. Among his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Furthermore, he was able to increase the ship's capacity 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 shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business even diversified into the fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional projects that 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 Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, their first foray 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 one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was built to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.