“We had a knocker-up, and our knocker-up had a knocker-up
And our knocker-up’s knocker-up didn’t knock our knocker up
So our knocker-up didn’t knock us up
‘Cos he’s not up.“
Victorian tongue twister
Introduction
Much has been lost in the mists of time. The traditions and quirks are now just a distant memory. Long before you set an alarm on your phone or had an alarm clock beside your bed to wake you for the working day, a now-forgotten method was used to wake the community. Common in Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands during the Industrial Revolution until it died out in the early 1970s, men and women were employed for a few pennies a week to walk the streets and raise sleepy heads.
Rise and Shine
Using several implements, including a long bamboo cane and even a pea shooter, bedroom windows would be tapped to wake people up. Rattles and soft hammers were also sometimes used. In the days of gas lamps, they carried a ‘sniffer outer’ to extinguish the street lamps as they passed. Populated by elderly men, pregnant women and police constables who used this task to supplement their pay while doing their early morning patrol, these now long-forgotten workers would walk the streets until sunrise. Ghosts of time that disappeared before the milkman and the road sweepers.
During this time, you would have seen slate boards outside miners’ houses if you travelled to Ferry Hill, County Durham. The miners’ shifts were written in chalk so the knocker-upper knew when to wake them up—known as knocky-up boards” or “wake-up slates”. A sharp contrast to most of the rounds where a hazard of the job was that you woke up other people due to your actions. This work was mentioned in Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations and the story of Jack the Ripper’s murders.
Knocker-uppers slept during the day and woke up in the late afternoon. They needed to as their work began at 1 am. Regulars who became household names included Granny Cousins, Mrs Bowers and Mary Smith with her pea shooter. A job that was often passed down through generations. It played a vital role when many couldn’t afford an alarm clock or watch or were in their infancy.
