Georgie Porgie

It’s short, cheeky, and has been echoing across playgrounds for more than a century. But Georgie Porgie hasn’t always looked or sounded quite the same.

Early Versions

The rhyme first showed up in print in 1841, in a little collection called The Kentish Coronal. Back then, the hero was spelled “Georgy Peorgy,” and instead of boys, it was the girls who came out to play. That early version stuck around through much of the 19th century, long enough to be illustrated by Kate Greenaway in 1881 and quoted by Rudyard Kipling in a story a decade later.

Pudding, Pumpkin, or Picklety Pie?

Like many old rhymes, the words shifted depending on who told them. James Halliwell-Phillipps, one of the great collectors of nursery lore, printed a version in 1853 where Georgie was replaced by “Rowley Powley” and the pudding turned into pumpkin pie. In Cheshire, a local twist had it as “picklety pie.” Clearly, the sweet treat was flexible—pudding, pumpkin, or pickle, as long as the rhythm worked.

Boys Step In

By the 1880s, the rhyme had changed to the one we recognize today: “When the boys came out to play.” That version quickly became the standard. When Iona and Peter Opie put together their Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes in 1951, they included the boys’ version, sealing its place in modern memory.

Meaning

Over the years, people have tried to match Georgie Porgie to real historical figures. Some claimed he was King George I; others pointed at George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, notorious for his affairs and scandals. None of these links are proven, but they’ve added a layer of intrigue. A rhyme that might just be about playground teasing has been dressed up as hidden political satire.

In practice, children didn’t care about kings or dukes. “Georgie Porgie” was a perfect sing-song taunt. It could be flung at any boy named George, at a chubby classmate, or at a lad who didn’t act “tough” enough. Sometimes it was even flipped into “Rosie Posie” to tease girls instead. In that sense, it wasn’t just a rhyme but a weapon of mockery, delivered with a grin and impossible to shake once it caught on.

From Nursery to Music Hall

The rhyme didn’t stay on the playground. It was set to music in 19th-century songbooks, turned into a novelty foxtrot in the 1920s, and later slipped into pop culture. Most famously, the band Toto used the first two lines in their 1978 track Georgy Porgy. A nursery jingle had found its way into disco-era music.