The company Harland and Wolff was established in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831. During 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Once Harland bought Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. Furthermore, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
The company eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding sector causing them to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate 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 more projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, their first venture into the civil engineering sector happened with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships which 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.