Doctor Who: 10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About The Doctor
7. The Classic Doctors Were All Posh
Christopher Eccleston spoke of wanting to have a Northern accent because a posh voice would imply that only upper-class people could be hyper-intelligent, like the Doctor.
The notion of a posh Doctor certainly influences a lot of the parody versions - particularly American spoofs like the Inspector Spacetime gag in Community - but those types of characters aren't really reflected in the casting of the Doctor.
While it's certainly true that the First and Third Doctors had what could be classed as establishment voices, that doesn't tell the full story. William Hartnell grew up in London slums without ever knowing his father. Tom Baker was working on a building site when he was cast as the Doctor. In his youth, Peter Davison's father was a greengrocer, and after leaving school, Davison was briefly an odd-jobs man, who once worked as a mortuary attendant.
Ultimately, the Doctor is a Time "Lord", and that may have affected the performances of the previous actors. However, even with that in mind, the Doctor's voice is very rarely posh or snooty, and the character certainly doesn't hold themselves in such a manner.