The main aim of the research was to collect and use previously unused archive data (currently available in the archive repositories of the main commercial banks) to examine policy and practice on the management of investment portfolios by English commercial banks in the decades prior to 1914. The contribution to knowledge arises from the strengthening of our understanding of general asset management by the banks (e.g. their approach to risk; liquidity and capital adequacy) and of the role of financial institutions in the capital market during a period of significant economic and cultural development in both the UK banking sector and secondary capital markets. The archive data available at the main commercial banks has been used to create datasets. These datasets contain information relating to the investments and securities held by each of the banks for which archive material was available. The data is presented in the form of a series of spreadsheets. A typical spreadsheet details the securities held by a bank in a given year. Further information may be provided such as: the amount held, the price paid, the value, etc. The amount of information provided for a particular bank is dependent upon the amount of information in the surviving archival sources.