During 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, established the business. In the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
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 mostly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships that were built by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the business a successful venture. One of his well-known suggestions was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Additionally, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They chose to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on shipbuilding. The company even diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and 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 include the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their first venture into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was amongst six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched in 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.