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Thursday, February 27, 2014

knocker-ups

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Don't forget to set your Alarm tonight:

A forgotten profession: In the days before alarm clocks were widely affordable, people like Mary Smith of Brenton Street were employed to rouse sleeping people in the early hours of the morning. They were commonly known as ‘knocker-ups’ or ‘knocker-uppers’. Mrs. Smith was paid sixpence a week to shoot dried peas at market workers’ windows in Limehouse Fields, London. 
Photograph from Philip Davies’ Lost London: 1870-1945.

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