Every generation inherits a world shaped by the one before it. The tools change, the rhythms shift, and whole categories of ...

The knocker-upper was a professional who emerged and persisted during the Industrial Revolution when alarm clocks were expensive and unreliable. By the 1940s and 1950s, this occupation had largely ...

What would we ever do without alarm clocks? One possibility would be to take a cue from Industrial Revolution-era Britain and Ireland and hire a knocker-upper. Back then, alarm clocks were pricey and ...

The knocker upper used a wooden pole to tap on workers' windows. This was essential as alarm clocks were not widely available. The custom is thought to have survived until 1973. This silent archive ...

Before smartphones and alarms, in the 1920s it fell to just one Nottingham man to wake people up in time for the daily grind. Using either a pea-shooter or a stick, 68-year-old Arthur Robinson was ...

As the clocks go forward for the start of British Summer Time, many of us will rue the loss of an hour in bed. But how did people get to work on time before alarm clocks? Until the 1970s in some areas ...

WE are constantly hearing about jobs that could become extinct in the future- but what about the ones we left behind? From postal workers to printers and publishers, we could soon be seeing a screen ...

Have you ever wondered how you might have earned your keep if you were born more than a century ago? The early risers among us might have been knocker uppers. It sounds faintly rude, but a knocker ...

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