In 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831, formed the company. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Once Harland purchased 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 initial 3 ships which the brand new shipyard made were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. One of his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by utilizing iron for the upper wodden decks. Moreover, 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 shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to focus less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The company also diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges include the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector occurred.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was amongst six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed to be utilized by the Ministry of Defense. During the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.