During 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, established the business. In 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Harland at one time purchased Hickson's shipyard and made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested mostly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. One of his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. What's more, 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 eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The company even diversified into the fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for more projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be constructed in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges include the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, their first foray into the civil engineering sector took place with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six near identical Point class sealift ships which was built to be used by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.