During 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831, established the company. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Among his famous suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength 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.
Harland and Wolff were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They chose to focus less on building ships and more on structural engineering and design. The business even diversified into the fields 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, like 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 initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships that was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. In the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.