During 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831, formed the business. During the year 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, purchased the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
When 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 mostly 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 company a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by replacing the upper wooden decks with iron ones. As well, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a flatter bottom and a square cross section.
Harland and Wolff were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to focus less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The company also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for more projects which 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 Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector took place with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six almost identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.