The company Harland and Wolff was established in 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought 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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Among his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Moreover, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The company eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding sector causing them to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to focus less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for more 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 the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges comprise the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, their first venture into the civil engineering sector took place with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.