Back in 1969 I had a summer job at a textile mill in the south of Chile. Time was regulated by the loud steam whistles of the three large textile factories that were the only industry in town. They could be heard throughout the town. A specific sequence (e.g. short-short-long) was the 6 AM wake-up call. There were different sequences for the start of shift, lunch break, etc. It definitely had the feeling of living in a Dickens novel.
Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
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Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#82The philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford argued that the origin of modern industrial machines goes back further than the Industrial Revolution and Renaissance, all the way back to the regimented and time-based lives of medieval monks. Knocker uppers seem like a direct obvious example of this phenomenon of humans as proto machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.psu.…
Following that train of thought back one can go all the way to the Roman Empire which used slaves as proto machines as you call them. >As a funny personal note: one of my ancestors actually had the last name (Polish budzik) translated as “alarm clock,” which I assume means they had a similar sort of job as knocker uppers. I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though. Surnames are funny, I always though…
The "alarm clock" surname is pretty cool though if you know this factoid: the word for waking up in Slavic languages is the same as the Sanskrit root "budh", which also means "to wake". So Buddha is "the one who has awakened".
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you've not read Most Secret War I highly recommend it. Dr R V Jones details some of the different systems involved in the Battle of Britain and it's a great book too.
I read 'The Secret War' by Brian Johnson which was based on a 1970s BBC series. I think it's an earlier version of the same thing. Another great (although very dry) book is 'Between Human and Machine - Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics' by David A. Mindell. This goes into the fire control stuff that I mentioned, and describes how one effect of the war was to force together the different groups that…
> I think ['The Secret War' by Brian Johnson is] an earlier version of ['Most Secret War' by R V Jones]
Most Secret War is R V Jones' memoir of his personal involvement in radar, aerial navigation, aerial surveillance etc. in British military intelligence. I read it a long time ago but I don't remember it as a dry read at all - dramatic times after all.
Brian Johnson was involved in writing and producing the BBC documentary and a book. So it's not an earlier version of the same thing. The documentary is on youtube I think - a good watch, but I'd recommend reading Jones' original book.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Translation: It appears that milk was delivered to the dormitories first thing in the morning, after the same fashion as "the milkman". Distributing said milk was a separate duty from waking up the students, but occurred around the same time; both duties being on a weekly rotation. Therefore it was mutually agreed that the student on milk duty would also bang on the doors as he went, thus relieving the student on Off…
You underestimate the perversity of boarding school. The important thing is that you are woken - nobody actually checks that you got up, however, until your absence for assembly is noted. If you were good at wriggling into full penguin in 30 seconds while running down the stairs, you could sleep in until 8:38.
But surely this is true of everyone, not just the "doss fag" Official Door Banger In Chief? Or was work allocated such that every single student had something to do first thing in the morning, so that the Door Banger was the only one not actually required to be up?
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#85The philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford argued that the origin of modern industrial machines goes back further than the Industrial Revolution and Renaissance, all the way back to the regimented and time-based lives of medieval monks. Knocker uppers seem like a direct obvious example of this phenomenon of humans as proto machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.psu.…
> I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though.
Since this is somehow 'anglosaxon' I'm pulling thing out of thin air.
In German that would be Wecker as in the thing that is waking you.
So I'd guess in English that would be anything written like Wake.. or derivative from that.
Edit: maybe Whacko ;>
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#86The philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford argued that the origin of modern industrial machines goes back further than the Industrial Revolution and Renaissance, all the way back to the regimented and time-based lives of medieval monks. Knocker uppers seem like a direct obvious example of this phenomenon of humans as proto machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.psu.…
> I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though. Since this is somehow 'anglosaxon' I'm pulling thing out of thin air. In German that would be Wecker as in the thing that is waking you. So I'd guess in English that would be anything written like Wake.. or derivative from that. Edit: maybe Whacko ;>
I thought of Wake, too, but those seem to be related to keeping watch rather than waking someone.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#87The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I'd never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke…
> I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900
I live in a house from around that time. I just spent some time replacing the front window with double glazing. The original glass was 2mm thick. It was bending precariously as we removed it from the frame.
How in the world that glass survived as long as it did will forever be a mystery to me.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
You underestimate the perversity of boarding school. The important thing is that you are woken - nobody actually checks that you got up, however, until your absence for assembly is noted. If you were good at wriggling into full penguin in 30 seconds while running down the stairs, you could sleep in until 8:38.
But surely this is true of everyone, not just the "doss fag" Official Door Banger In Chief? Or was work allocated such that every single student had something to do first thing in the morning, so that the Door Banger was the only one not actually required to be up?
In the house in general, yeah, but the first years (“shells”) had a rota of tasks, most of which involved delivering something (milk, juice, bread, papers) or taking something away (trash, crockery). Knocking up was the only one where there wasn’t something to carry.
Weekend papers was the worst. Fifty fat newspapers to deliver throughout the house, up winding servants’ stairs.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coming from a north american public school, I can't imagine one's family paying large sums of money to send you to a boarding school... just to be some older boy's servant. Get your own ass up, or don't, not my problem. I am by no means a rabid libertarian but that kind of environment would drive me to it.
I would pay large sums of money to have my kids learn the lesson that there is a hierarchy and one must always start on the bottom to understand every layer.
That isn’t what one learns. One learns to cheat, lie, and steal, and to exploit systems and manipulate people. You don’t survive if you play by the rules.
Public schools produce sociopaths, in general.
Still, a valuable skillset, I must say.
Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Following that train of thought back one can go all the way to the Roman Empire which used slaves as proto machines as you call them. >As a funny personal note: one of my ancestors actually had the last name (Polish budzik) translated as “alarm clock,” which I assume means they had a similar sort of job as knocker uppers. I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though. Surnames are funny, I always though…
The "alarm clock" surname is pretty cool though if you know this factoid: the word for waking up in Slavic languages is the same as the Sanskrit root "budh", which also means "to wake". So Buddha is "the one who has awakened".
That is super cool. Thanks for the factoid!