The business Harland and Wolff was formed during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Harland at one time bought 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 mostly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that 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. Additionally, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The company eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to focus more on structural engineering and design and less on building ships. The company even diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for additional projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be built in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector occurred.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.