This paper challenges the “recency bias” found in most academic and practitioner literature on impact investing and explores early examples of impact investing in 19th and 20th Century England. Building on Suddaby (2016), it then proposes to re-contextualize and reframe impact investing using historical data, methods and theoretical frameworks drawn from ANTi-hist, evolutionary theory, rhetorical history and neo-institutionalism, around six major research gaps: (1) Selecting effective metrics to capture social impact; (2) Evaluating forms of governance for effectiveness and inclusivity; (3) Reassessing impact investors as innovators, disruptors and change agents; (4) Analyzing Impact investors as builders of carefully constructed narratives for self-legitimization; (5) Extending research into early forms of for profit/for social good investments beyond the UK and the US; and (6) Exploring political contexts and assumptions in the choice of private, public and private/public forms of social action. For each research gap, we identify a set of relevant questions for future research.