The business Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Once Harland purchased Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the company. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested mainly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. One of his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. In addition, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to building ships. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate more on structural design and engineering and less on shipbuilding. The company also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be built in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened.
Today, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during the year 2003, after being constructed under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.