The Human Alarm clocks

Day 51 / 365

Before the industrial revolution, alarms clocks were quite expensive and basically a luxury. But people still had jobs that required them to wake up early. Were our ancestors just so disciplined that they could get up early without any help? Well, that’s not the case.

Knocker Uppers were people whose job it was to wake people up in the morning. This title is quite literal, as most of them carried long sticks they used to knock on windows oh higher floors. In return, they charged a weekly or monthly fee.

This trade first started in the UK, around the same time the author Charles Dickens was about. He even wrote about them in some of his novels.

Who were these people?

People who took up this job were mostly the elderly. Although sometimes policemen and constables did this part-time as a way to supplement their income.

Some people got quite creative with it as well. Mary Smith, a famous Knocker Upper, used to shoot dried peas through a pipe at people’s windows!

Mary’s daughter, also named Mary, took up the same profession. She is thought to be one of the last of London’s Knocker Uppers.

Seems so strange that something that sounds so ridiculous today was an everyday thing just 100 years ago. Makes we wonder what jobs we have today will not only become obsolete but sound plain stupid to our future generations.

This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The Ice King