The business Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg in 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. In 1858 the general manager during the time, Harland, purchased 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 business. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested mostly in the Bibby Line. The first 3 ships which the brand new shipyard built were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Amongst his well-known 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 were eventually faced with competitive pressures in regards to building ships. They sought to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus more on structural engineering and design and less on shipbuilding. The business also diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for additional projects which had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be built in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges comprise the restoration of both the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. In the 1980s, their first foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
To date, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.