The study seeks to trace the historical development of the form, design and content of supplementary information in the annual reports of Canadian public companies for the period 1938 -- 1963. Public companies refer to all companies, other than mining and oil companies, whose shares were listed on any one of the five stock exchanges in Canada as of June 1, 1964. Supplementary information is defined as any information which a company furnishes in its annual reports other than the information required to be published by the Companies Act, Canada. Specifically, the study is based on an analysis of the annual reports of 115 Canadian public companies for five selected years, namely: 1938, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963. The 115 companies were picked by means of stratified random sampling. They represent approximately 19% of the total listed public companies. Among the main findings of the study, three trends were particularly outstanding, namely: the trend toward more disclosure .of supplementary information, the trend toward improved format and design in the presentation of supplementary information and the trend toward an enlarged report. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate