Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tom doodle n.

a fool.

1697		Female Wits I ii: I believe our People wou’d dance after any Tom-Dingle for a pen’rth of Sugar-plums.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:7 7: Compos’d of Non-sense and Ill-nature, / Squeez’d out from the illit’rate Noddle / Of some dull, canting, Tom a Doodle.
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 10 Oct. 34: The Effeminate Tom-Doodle of a Fop, looks like a Catamite.
1711		N. Ward Vulgus Britannicus III 33: To make the Sov’raign Pow’r a Bauble, / And labour’d like a Tom-a-doodle, / To place the Rump above the Noddle.