The company Harland and Wolff was established during the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. In 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 mainly 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 famous suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by using iron for the upper wodden decks. In addition, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The company eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The business even diversified into the fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional 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 the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. 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 happened.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was one of six near identical Point class sealift ships that was built to be used by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.