THE MODERN WORKER ROLLS OUT of bed, groans, and turns off an alarm clock. But industrial-era British and Irish workers relied on a different method for rising each morning. In the 19th century and well into the 20th, a human alarm clock known as a “knocker-up” (knocker-upper) would trawl the streets and wake paying customers in time for work. Armed with sticks—or, in the case of Mary Smith, a pea shooter—they tapped on windows or blasted them with dried peas.

I have never heard of such a thing. Cool!

a young British chap flying back to London who as had a polite conversation during the flight with the young American woman headed to study aboard at Cambridge asks her before departing the plane if he might knock her up some time, she is quite offended.

he actually asked if he could call on her for a visit possibly take her out for a meal


in American English , a euphemism for get her pregnant

Never heard of that. If I was still teaching I would add that in. Thanks for posting.

Who gets the knocker upper up?

That's a great question- based on the pic- probably not her significant other .

Now we have alarm clocks.

probably the night watchman

the American version a bit later in time was the Wake up call as it was quite common by the 1950s to have a phone line in the house

when I first started in telecom , we were still doing some wakeup calls your answering service had a list of who they called when the ops got to know people quite well , make sure you talk with Mr. Jones for a moment and that he is awake not just grumbling

the ops were up all night taking calls so they did the wakeup calls in the morning then shift change after check-in calls were through in the morning

wasn't uncommon for them to be calling their co-worker who they traded switchboards with at shift change to make sure they were up and on time.

at that time the answering services were located next to the central office and were tapped into their clients lines and could take over if you let it ring past 4

My wife is a retired MPS teacher in Wisconsin. I did not like that area and am glad to be out of there.

I remember those dried peas would sting you pretty good with a good puff of air. I got in some Dutch a few times by accident.

MPS is not part of my Wisconsin! I would never live or teach there.