The Story Behind's video: Before Alarm Clocks There Were KNOCKER UPPERS

The Industrial revolution made changes in a lot of habits of the working class. Most of them had to wake up early. But in the 19th century, alarm clocks weren’t that popular. For most of the workers, they were too expensive. So workers hired knocker-uppers to wake them up. This profession was a common sight in Britain and Ireland. Knocker-uppers mostly worked in big cities or in northern parts of the country. At first, knocker-uppers simply rang or knocked on the door. But it was found impractical. Knocker-uppers woke up the entire house. Neighbors who didn’t have to wake up early started to complain. They found a more gentle way to wake workers up. Knocker-uppers made a long stick with a knob on its end. Bedrooms of the workers were usually located on the top floor. So they used sticks to knock on the window. And all the other neighbors could sleep calmly. They usually continued to knock until the person would show up in the window. Knocker-uppers could serve up to 100 people during the day. Most of them asked to be woken up between five and six in the morning. They earned around sixpence a week from each worker. But knocker-uppers also invented other ways to wake up their clients. Some of them used soft hammers or rattles. Mary Smith was famous for waking people up with a pea-shooter. Her flute-like instrument was used to shoot pea in the windows. Not all of the workers were grateful to the knockers. They didn’t care, that they hired them. Sometimes they throw a bucket of water on knockers-ups. The job was totally ungrateful and also pretty hard. Knocker-uppers had to be first who wake up in the city. But how did they do it? The British tongue-twister answered with a joke: «We had a knocker-up, and our knocker-up had a knocker-up». But in reality, most of the knocker-uppers were the night owls. They slept during the day after the job was done. Alarm clocks became widespread in the 1940s and 1950s. And most of the knocker-uppers lost their jobs. In some cities of northern England, people still hired knocker-uppers until the 70s. Subscribe to The Story Behind https://is.gd/hixAAr Music by Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/