In the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, established the company. In the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought 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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. One of his famous ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength 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.
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 building ships. The company also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges include the restoration of Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, their first foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during the year 2003, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.