The company Harland and Wolff was formed in 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. In 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard located 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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Among his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by using iron for the upper wodden decks. As well, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The business eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on shipbuilding. The business also diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair and 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 include the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their first venture into the civil engineering sector took place.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. During the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.