The business Harland and Wolff was established in the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born in 1831. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought 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 company. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which were built by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Among his well-known ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. 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 building ships. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for more 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, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector occurred with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.