While these days people rely on their cell phones or alarm clocks in order to wake up in the morning. Personal alarm clocks were patented in Europe in 1847, but that was not affordable and, therefore, not commonly used by the general public. People needed a way to wake themselves up in the morning or they could find themselves without a job. This is where the knocker-ups came in.
A knocker-up, sometimes known as a knocker-upper, was a profession in Britain and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution when alarm clocks were neither cheap nor reliable. A knocker-up's job was to wake-up sleeping people so they could get to work on time. this profession was very popular among old aged people. most of the elderly worked as knocker-up to make some extra money. By the 1940s and 1950s, this profession had died out.
The knocker-up used a baton or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients' doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. Some knocker-uppers would not leave a client's window until they were sure that the client had been awoken, other's simply tapped several times and then moved on.
There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in a larger industrial town. Generally, the job was done by elderly men and women but sometimes police constables supplemented their pay by performing the task during early morning patrols.
Comments