Gustav(e) Wilhelm Wolff was born in Hamburg on 10 October 1834, the son of Moritz Wolff and Fanny Maria Schwabe. Gustav Wolff died on 17 April 1913 at 42 Park Street, London and is buried at the Brompton Cemetery. He founded the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff from which he retired on 30 June 1906.  He received the freedom of the City of Belfast on 18 February 1911. Clara May's diary notes that he died 2.00 am on 17 April, one day and one year after the sinking of the Titanic.

There are a few sources of information that discuss Gustav Wolff.  One is Jefferson's book 'Viscount Pirrie' and another ‘Shipbuilders to the World: 125 years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast 1861-1986’ by Michael Moss and John R. Hume published in 1986.  These links lead to both sources in PDF. 

You can read a summary of Wolff's will prepared by the Northern Ireland Public Records Office.  Among the recipients of the will was Aileen Smiles who is the granddaughter of the Victorian thinker Samuel Smiles whose book ‘Self-help’ had a quite profound impact during the nineteenth century.  A friendship arose between Wolff and the Smiles family which can be gathered from Aileen's biography of her grandfather published in 1956: ‘Samuel Smiles and his surroundings’.

Gustav Wolff was also one of the founders, owners, and directors of the largest rope-works in the world located in Belfast, and so too was Aileen’s father, Willy Smiles.  What makes Aileen's book interesting from a Wolff/Schwabe perspective is that it is (so far) the only source that gives a ‘description’ of Fanny Schwabe and Moritz Wolff, albeit extremely fleeting, as follows:

 “They (Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Smiles) usually stayed on the Continent for three months and when there would meet their friends and neighbors.  It was almost as good as being at home. Gustave Wolff with his father and mother, “good kindly folk”; …” (p. 158).

The book makes some further very brief mentions of Wolff.  It is interesting that rope should have been one of Wolff’s interests. Hamburg was one of the leading rope making centers of Europe and the fact that Wolff established a rope works in Belfast suggests the possibility that the Wolff family may well have had an interest in that industry in Hamburg.  More research is needed here.

Also Samuel Smiles' book Men of Industry has a chapter by Edward Harland in which Harland recalls his association with Wolff, this can be accessed HERE.  Below is Wolff's obituary from the Times, photographs of his grave, and the exterior of his home on Park Street.