"Doctor Foster" is an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From ...

that has appeared in many anthologies since the nineteenth century. It has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the Londo ...

number of 19288.

The rhyme

The rhyme was first published in its modern form in 1844, although the rhyming of 'puddle' with 'middle' suggests that it may have originally been the archaic 'piddle' for a stream and that the verse may therefore be much older. I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 173. The first recorded text was:

Origins and meaning

It was suggested by Boyd Smith (1920) that the rhyme may be based on a story of

Edward I of England Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a va ...

travelling to Gloucester, falling off his horse into a puddle, and refusing to return to the city thereafter. There is a rhyme published in ''Gammer Gurton's Garland'' (1810) with a similar form: This variant and the late date of recording suggest that the medieval meaning is unlikely. Two other explanations have been proposed. 1. That Doctor Foster was an emissary of

William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...

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, who visited Gloucester with instructions that all communion tables should be placed at the east end of the church instead of their post-Reformation or Puritan position in the centre of the chancel: but that he had not been able to reach Deerhurst because the Severn was in flood. 2. That it refers to an incident in the play '' Doctor Faustus'' by

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon t ...

wherein he is referred to as ''Doctor Fauster'' by a person whom he caused to get wet crossing a river by conjuring a straw into a horse which changed back to the straw in the middle of the river.Keefer, M. (Ed.), ''The tragical history of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe: a critical edition of the 1604 version'' (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2008), page 346.
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References

{{authority control Gloucester English folk songs English nursery rhymes English children's songs Songs about physicians Songs about fictional male characters Traditional children's songs 1844 songs Songwriter unknown