The company Harland and Wolff was established in 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. In the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He bought the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Harland at one time bought 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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. Among his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. As well, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
The business eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on shipbuilding. The business also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as 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 built in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges consist of the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny 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 project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was amongst six near identical Point class sealift ships that was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in the year 2003, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.