The company Harland and Wolff was formed during the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, purchased the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
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 that the brand new shipyard built were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Also, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to building ships. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The company also diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for additional projects that 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 consist of the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector occurred with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six almost 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 Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.