The company Harland and Wolff was established during the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. During the year 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful venture. Amongst his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Additionally, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
The business eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them 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 also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for additional projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their first foray into the civil engineering sector took place.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. During the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.