The company Harland and Wolff was established in 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg during the year 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during the year 1831. In 1858 Harland, who was the general manager at the time, purchased the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He bought the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Once 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 mainly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships which the brand new shipyard built were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful venture. Among his well-known ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship 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.
The company eventually experienced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding sector causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to focus less on building ships and more on structural design and engineering. The business also diversified into the areas of ship repair, offshore construction projects 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 constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges consist of the restoration of Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, with the construction of the Foyle Bridge, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector took place.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff to date. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships which was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. During 2003, the ship was launched, after being built under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.