During the year 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, established the business. During the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
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 first 3 ships that the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. One of his famous ideas was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. As well, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to building ships. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to concentrate less on shipbuilding and more on structural design and engineering. The business even diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for more projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
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 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 took place with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.