In 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, formed the company. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard situated 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 company. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that the brand new shipyard constructed were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his famous suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. In addition, 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 shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus less on shipbuilding and more on structural engineering and design. The business also diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for additional projects that had to do with construction and metal engineering.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was one of six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.