The Tudor Textbase project was initiated in 1986. Professor Alistair Fox and Dr Greg Waite had begun research work on early Tudor English language and literature, and saw the need for a computer-based collection of texts. In consultation with Professor Ian Lancashire of the University of Toronto, who visited Otago that year, the systematic processing of texts began.

An early product of our application of computer resources to texts of the period was the publication of A. Fox and G. Waite. A Concordance to the Complete Poems of John Skelton (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987).

Through the late eighties and early nineties various teaching staff at Otago contributed to the preparation and editing of texts, principally Dr Janet Wilson (now at the University of Northampton www.northampton.ac.uk) and Dr Seymour B. House (now at Mount Angel Seminary, Oregon www.mtangel.edu).

For much of the Project's duration Dr Paul Sorrell was a substantial contributor, first as post-Doctoral Fellow, then funded Research Assistant, and latterly as Associate Editor. The project was able to employ Paul through financial support from the University of Otago research Fund, and from FRST (Foundation for Research Science and Technology).