Supernovae (SNe) play an important role in many areas of astrophysics. However, despite years of observational and theoretical research, the exact nature of their progenitor systems remains undetermined. The work presented in this thesis attempts to further our understanding of these explosive events by investigating the nature of the stellar populations in the immediate vicinity of historical events. The research is, in the main based on Ha and R-band observations of a large sample of ~200 host galaxies that have harboured over 230 SNe.