The business Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
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 which the brand new shipyard made were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his famous suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Additionally, 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 were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The business even diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for more projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
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 both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector took place with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was one of six near identical Point class sealift ships that was built to be used by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.