ABSTRACT
It has been seen above that the 1930s saw widespread change in attitudes held about the desirable form and content of financial reports and about the governance of such reports. It is sometimes assumed that these changes were accompanied by an evolutionary development in accounting practice, such that by the time the provisions of CA48 were enacted they were substantially a codification of existing practice. However, there are surprisingly few studies of this development of accounting practice though the 193 0s and into the 1940s (a notable exception being Edwards (1981)) and it is in fact not clear that all aspects of reform introduced by CA48 had been anticipated in the accounts of reporting companies.
