The business Harland and Wolff was established in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased 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 company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Among his well-known ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. Furthermore, 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 focus less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The business also diversified into the fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for additional projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff building a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges consist of the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened.
To date, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. In the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.