"Doctor Foster" is an English language nursery rhyme that has appeared in many anthologies since the nineteenth century.

[1] The first recorded text was: Doctor Foster went to Gloucester, In a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle, Right up to his middle, And never went there again.

[1] It was suggested by Boyd Smith (1920) that the rhyme may be based on a story of Edward I of England travelling to Gloucester, falling off his horse into a puddle, and refusing to return to the city thereafter.

[1] There is a rhyme published in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1810) with a similar form: Old Dr. Foster went to Gloster, To preach the work of God.

That Doctor Foster was an emissary of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 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.