The business Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. During 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He purchased 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 initial 3 ships which were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. One of his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Furthermore, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The business eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding sector 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 fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for additional projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be built in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges include the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their initial foray 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 that was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.