As with many nursery rhymes, attempts have been made to find origins and meanings for the rhyme, most of which have no evidence.[1] Katherine Elwes Thomas suggested that the rhyme referred to resentment at the heavy taxation on
wool.It refers to refer to the medieval English "Great" or "Old Custom" wool tax of 1275, which survived until the fifteenth century. More recently the rhyme has been connected to the slave trade, particularly in the southern United States