During 1861, the company Harland and Wolff was formed. Mr. Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg during the year 1834, and Mr. Edward James Harland born in the year 1831, formed the company. During the year 1858 Harland, who was the general manager during the time, bought the small shipyard located on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from his employer, Richard Hickson.
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 mostly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being innovative, Harland made the company a successful undertaking. One of his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Moreover, he was able to increase the ship's capacity by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
The company eventually faced increasing pressures in the shipbuilding industry causing them to shift their focus and broaden their portfolio. They decided to concentrate more on structural engineering and design and less on shipbuilding. The company even diversified into the fields of ship repair, offshore construction projects as well as competing for additional projects that had to do with metal engineering or construction.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, such as a series of bridges to be constructed in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland. These bridges comprise the restoration of the James Joyce Bridge and Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge. During the 1980s, their initial venture into the civil engineering sector occurred with the building of the Foyle Bridge.
The MV Anvil Point was the last shipbuilding project of Harland and Wolff to date. This was one of six near identical Point class sealift ships which was constructed to be used by the Ministry of Defense. In 2003, the ship was launched, after being constructed under license from German shipbuilders Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft.