The company Harland and Wolff was established during 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during 1834, along with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard situated on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
Once Harland bought Hickson's shipyard, he then made his assistant Wolff a partner in the company. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff was the nephew of Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg. He has invested heavily in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were made by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful venture. Amongst his well-known suggestions was increasing the ship's overall strength by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Additionally, he was able to increase the ship's capacity 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 chose to concentrate less on shipbuilding and more on structural design and engineering. The company even diversified into the fields of offshore construction projects, ship repair as well as competing for more projects which 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 comprise the restoration of Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. In the 1980s, their initial foray into the civil engineering sector happened with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was amongst six almost identical Point class sealift ships that was constructed for use by the Ministry of Defense. In the year 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, German shipbuilders.