In the year 1861, the business Harland and Wolff was established. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831, formed the business. During 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Harland at one time purchased 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 heavily in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which the brand new shipyard made were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. Among his famous ideas 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 building ships. 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 ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for more projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
These other interests led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges consist of the restoration of Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the building of the Foyle Bridge, their first foray into the civil engineering sector took place.
To date, 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. The ship was launched during the year 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.