Knocker-up

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A Knocker-up (sometimes known as a knocker-upper) was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution, before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up would wake up very early (sometimes as early as 3:00 am) to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time. Usually, the knocker-up was male and most often used a long and light stick (often bamboo), with pieces of wire attached at the end - to reach windows on higher floors and wake their clients at whetever time their clients requested. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week for this job. The knocker-up would not leave a client's window until they were assured the client had been awoken. Knocker-ups usually worked in larger cities like London or Liverpool.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens includes a brief descrition of a knocker-up. Hindle Wakes a play written by Stanley Houghton and then a movie (of the same title) directed by Maurice Elvey, includes a knocker-up. Mary Smith, by Andrea U'Ren is a children's picture book based on the real Mary Smith a knocker-up.

Mrs. Molly Moore (daughter of Mrs. Mary Smith, also a knocker-up and the protagonist of a children's picture book aptly entitled "Mary Smith") claims to have been the last knocker-up to have been employed as such. Both Mary Smith and Molly Moore used a long rubber tube as a peashooter - to shoot dried peas at their client's windows.

Some knocker-ups worked freelance; their clients would either post the time they wished to be woken next to their doors, in their windows, or verbally, in advance. Some knocker-ups were employed by mills or larger factories to wake their large workforce on time.

Although the profession of knocker-ups became obsolete with the advent of readily available alarm clocks, the expression knock up is still used in Britain and Ireland to refer to waking someone at a set time in the morning, especially at a hotel. (Use of the phrase by British travellers in North America is a well-known gaffe, because knock up is also a Canadian slang term (occasionally used in the U.S. as well) meaning "to impregnate".)