By Harry Howard, History Correspondent For Mailonline

20:49 24 Dec 2022, updated 14:09 25 Jan 2023

• Knocker-uppers, who were often women, would use a peashooter or a long stick to alert likes of dock workers
• Pinsetters would restore bowling pins to upright positions in bowling alleys before machinery replaced them
• Rat-catchers – the forerunners to the modern pest control man – were once common in Britain and elsewhere 

Before smartphones and even the humble alarm clock existed, people needed other ways to make sure they got up in time for work. 

Knocker-uppers, who were often women, would use a peashooter or a long stick to alert workers very early in the morning. 

The role is among many jobs that were once common but which now no longer exist. 

Other jobs that are now a thing of the past include the bowling alley pinsetter, who, in the years before the machinery that is used today, was tasked with restoring pins to an upright position after they had been knocked down.

Below, MailOnline has shed more light on nine roles that are now a thing of the past. It is the latest glimpse into Britain’s past, after we shed light on Victorian mugshots and insane asylums. 

Knocker-ups – replaced by alarm clocks… and then the smartphone 

Before the age of alarm clocks, workers who had to be up early needed a way of waking up on time. 

Knocker-ups, or knocker-uppers, were particularly common in the north of England, where there were thousands of factory workers who started their shifts very early in the morning. 

They were also common in London, where dock workers kept unusual hours due to the fact they had to take note of inconstant tides.  

Knocker-ups were also common in London, where dock workers kept unusual hours due to the fact they had to take note of inconstant tides. Above: Knocker-up Mrs Molly Moore uses a peashooter to wake people up in Stepney, East London Knocker-up Charles Nelson is seen at work in Hoxton, East London in 1929. At the time, he had been working in his role for 25 years

One famous knocker-up was Mary Smith, who charged sixpence to wake up industrial workers in East London. Rather than using a more common long stick to bang on bedroom windows, she had a peashooter. 

A famous image shows her at work in Limehouse in 1927.  

In 1916, the Daily Mail reported how knocker-ups were getting extra pay due to the First Word War

In 1916, the Daily Mail reported how knocker-ups were getting extra pay due to the First Word War and the need for the likes of munitions workers to be awake early. 

The report read: ‘The “profession” is a very important one in Lancashire towns, the function of the “knocker-up” being that of awakening workers early in the morning. 

He “knocks up” by means of a long rod with a strip of wire at the end, and rattles at the appointed window until the drowsy worker signals back. 

The paper quoted a knocker-up who told how workers were sending orders to be woken up at times that would have made them ‘dizzy even to think about’ before the war. 

Knocking up is referenced in Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations. Main character Pip noted how Mr Wopsle ‘being knocked up was in such a very bad temper…’.

With the spread of affordable alarm clocks, knocking up died out in most places by the 1940s and 1950s. 

But it did continue in pockets of the industrial north of England until the early 1970s.   

Railway knocker-up Doris Weigand is seen making a call to a home on May 31, 1941. She was employed to tell railway drivers and firemen that they were needed to work a shift at short notice. At the time, phones were not common in working class households Knocker-up William Crompton is seen at work in Bolton in 1939. He had been working for 53 years, waking factory workers up every morning. His work had initially survived the introduction of cheap alarm clocksAmazingly, Mr Crompton was himself woken by an alarm clock – at 3.45amBefore the age of alarm clocks, workers who had to be up early needed a way of waking up on time. One famous knocker-up was Mary Smith (pictured in 1926), who charged sixpence to wake up industrial workers in East London. Rather than using a long stick to bang on the windows, she had a peashooter

Rat-catchers – replaced by the modern pest control man

Rat-catchers – the forerunners to the modern pest control man – were once common in Britain and elsewhere. 

During the Victorian era, when London was infested with disease-carrying rats, catchers were in high demand.

Many young people, including children, became rat-catchers. The animals were either captured alive and sold as pets, or poisoned.

One famous rat catcher was Jack Black, who also dealt with moles and was famous for his homemade uniform of a topcoat, waistcoat and breeches. 

He also wore a leather sash that displayed cast-iron rats and claimed to be the Queen’s official rat-catcher. 

Rat catchers – the forerunners to the modern pest control man – were once common in Britain and elsewhere. Above: A rat catcher is seen with the results of a day’s work on the track at Euston Station in central London in 1939

Rat catchers also worked for the London Underground, catching the rodents that scurried along tracks and platforms. 

In 1903, the Daily Mail reported how a royal rat-catcher was set to be appointed to cope with an infestation of rodents at Windsor Castle and other royal properties. 

In 1910, a Daily Mail reporter accompanied rat-catchers in Suffolk as they went about their work.

The report read: ‘I have tramped afield with them, watched them, and talked with them, and not one ratcatcher have I found who will give away the secrets of his poison.

‘Each, to his own mind, possesses the golden specific for the extermination of vermin.’  

Rat catchers also worked for the London Underground, catching the rodents that scurried along tracks and platforms During the Victorian era, when London was infested with disease-carrying rats, catchers were in high demand. Above: An illustration of a rat-catcher at work in London’s sewers in 1849

Pinsetter – replaced by a machine

Before the days of automation, someone had to pick bowling pins back up when they were knocked down at bowling alleys. 

Photos show young men and women at work as pinsetters in the first half of the 20th Century. 

The job had more or less died out by the early 1950s, when automatic pinsetting became common place after the invention of the technology in the 1940s. 

Pinsetters had to be careful that they were not hit by flying pins or an errant bowling ball. 

Before the days of automation, someone had to pick bowling pins back up when they were knocked down at bowling alleys. Above: A young woman working as a pinsetter at a bowling alley, California, mid 20th century

Cigarette girl – declined as the health dangers of smoking became more apparent

Cigarette girls were a feature at bars and clubs from the 1920s onwards. 

Glamorous images show them wearing trays stuffed full of cigarette packs as they advertised their wares to customers sitting at tables in venues. 

The trays would often be branded with a well-known tobacco manufacturer, such as Philip Morris. 

Cigarette girls were a feature at bars and clubs from the 1920s onwards. Glamorous images show them wearing trays stuffed full of cigarette packs as they advertised their wares to customers sitting at tables in venues

Cigarette girls also featured at sporting events, which were dominated by tobacco advertising. 

The sight of glamorous women selling cigarettes declined from the 1950s as tobacco machines replaced them and attitudes about smoking shifted amid a deluge of evidence about its health dangers.

The role was dealt a further death blow with the banning of the promotion of cigarettes in many countries across the world.  

Mary Brian, the Hollywood actress, in costume as a cigarette girl in 1928. Cigarette girls also featured at sporting events, which were dominated by tobacco advertising

Scissors grinder – declined as scissors and other tools became cheaper

Scissors grinders were once common in Britain and elsewhere around the world. 

They would travel door to door to sharpen scissors, knives and other tools using a sharpening wheel that they carried with them.

When grinders were coming to an area, they would often publish a notice in the local newspaper. 

In 1911, the Daily Mail reported the case of a scissors grinder who had made a £20,000 fortune after working hard enough to run a grocer’s shop and off-license, which he then bought outright along with adjoining houses. 

Scissors grinders were once common in Britain and elsewhere around the world. They would travel door to door to sharpen scissors, knives and other tools using a sharpening wheel that they carried with them. Above: A scissors grinder at work in Brittany, France, in 1901

More than a decade earlier, in 1897, the paper told about a ‘needy knife grinder’ who was put in prison after initially charging ‘twopence’ to sharpen a pair of scissors but then demanding a fee that was 750 per cent higher. 

As technology improved, grinders would use electric tools and work from the back of a truck. 

But the ability to make a living from the profession declined from the mid 20th century onwards, as scissors and other tools, as well as sharpening devices, became far cheaper.

In 1911, the Daily Mail reported the case of a scissors grinder who had made a £20,000 fortune after working hard enough to run a grocer’s shop and off-license, which he then bought outright along with adjoining housesMore than a decade earlier, in 1897, the paper told about a ‘needy knife grinder’ who was put in prison after initially charging ‘twopence’ to sharpen a pair of scissors but then demanding a fee that was 750 per cent higher Woodcut engraving depicting a woman handing her scissors to a man who is using a scissor grinder

Lift operator – disappeared as lift technology improved

Although still present in plush hotels and some apartment buildings, lift operators have largely disappeared. 

They were once common on the London Underground, before the introduction of automatic lifts with buttons pushed by users made their role largely redundant.

Nearly all elevators had operators until the 1950s. They were needed to guide the car on its journey because they did not stop automatically with the floors. 

Now, the site of a staff member operating a lift is very rare in all but the most exclusive buildings.  

Although still present in plush hotels and some apartment buildings, lift operators have largely disappeared. They were once common on the London Underground, before the introduction of automatic lifts with buttons pushed by users made their role largely redundant. Above: A lift operator at a store in London in 1927 A smiling lift operator is seen waiting to welcome passengers inside his car in a building in 1930. It is not clear which country the image was taken in Two female lift operators on duty beside the lifts at Swan & Edgar’s department store in London in 1916, during the First World War

Leech collector – fell out of favour as bloodletting practice became less popular

In the 19th century, there was growing demand for leeches to cater to the practice of bloodletting. 

Doctors at the time believed that releasing blood from the body, through leeches or other means, could prevent or cure some diseases. 

Leeches, which can consume up to five times their own weight in blood, were therefore collected in large numbers. 

Professional leech collectors would use inventive means to get hold of the worms, including using their own legs to attract them. 

The demand for leeches was so great that the species of leech used for medicinal purposes nearly became extinct.

Collectors worked in warmer months of the year, when leeches were most active.  

Although bloodletting became less popular in the late 19th century as medical knowledge progressed, leeches have continued to be used by doctors to help tissue grafts heal.  

In the 19th century, there was growing demand for leeches to cater to the practice of bloodletting. Doctors at the time believed that releasing blood from the body, through leeches or other means, could prevent or cure some diseases

Rag and Bone man – declined from the 1950s onwards

Rag and bone men were once a common sight on streets in Britain and elsewhere. 

They made a living from collecting objects such as rags and pieces of metal – as well as bones – and then selling anything that proved to have some value.

The profession was famously highlighted in the 1970s sitcom Steptoe and Son, which told the stories of father and son Albert and Harold, who were both rag and bone men.

Rag and bone men would travel through the streets of cities, towns and villages with a large bag or cart that contained their possessions. They were also known as bone grubbers, bone pickers or rag gatherers. 

Rag and bone men were once a common sight on streets in Britain and elsewhere. Above: A rag and bone man seen with his cart in London in 1930 They made a living from collecting objects such as rags and pieces of metal – as well as bones – and then selling anything that proved to have some value. Above: A rag and bone man in the East End of London in the 1960s

In the 19th century, a rag and bone man could sell white rag that had been cleaned and dried for between 2 to 3 pence per pound. 

Old bones could sell for a similar price and were used to make soap, as well as handles for cutlery, toys or ornaments. 

Whilst traditional rag and bone men are now a thing of the past in Britain – having dramatically declined in number from the 1960s onwards – their modern-day equivalents, such as dealers in scrap metal and other ‘waste’ products, are still thriving.  

Child chimney sweep – condemned to the history book through legislation

Before legislation in the 1870s banned the practice, children were frequently sent up chimneys in Britain to clean them. 

After the Great Fire of London, building codes were changed to make chimneys narrower, meaning that only children could fit up them.  

Clogged chimneys needed to be cleaned because of the fire risk that they presented. Children were taken in by adult sweepers to work for them, but many were treated terribly.

The children were not given anything to protect them, such as a mask or special clothing, and many were injured by the horrific work. 

One chimney sweep, Robert Blincoe – is thought to have formed the inspiration for Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. 

He was sold aged six, as a ‘climbing boy’ to a chimney sweep in London and forced to scale chimneys that were just 18 inches wide. 

Before legislation in the 1870s banned the practice, children were frequently sent up chimneys in Britain to clean them. Above: A chimney sweep, his face blackened with soot, leans against railings outside an office. Illustration by the English engraver and printmaker George Baxter

After several months, Blincoe was returned to the workhouse. At the age of just 7, he was then sent to a cotton mill near Nottingham to work as a ‘scavenger’ – crawling under machines to pick up bits of cotton. 

Master sweeps would often light a fire under their charges to make them climb faster. Many boys and girls ultimately fell to their deaths.  

In 1788, an Act of Parliament mandated that sweeps’ apprentices should be at least eight years old, but the regulations were not enforced. Children as young as four are known to have been sent up chimneys. 

In 1834, the Child Chimney Sweeps Act then outlawed the apprenticing of any child younger than ten. And no child could actually be sent up a chimney until they were 14. 

A revised act in 1840 raised the minimum apprenticeship age to 16, but again the rules were largely ignored due to the difficulty of enforcement. 

It was not until 1875 with the Chimney Sweepers’ Act that the practice of sending children up chimneys came to an end. It required sweeps to be licensed and made it the duty of police to enforce all previous legislation. 

An illustration showing a child chimney sweep crossing the road in front of Blackfriars Bridge, with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background

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Next time you’re walking around the downtown end of Columbus Avenue, take a turn down a narrow one-block alley named Hotaling Place. Rather than staring up at the towering Transamerica Pyramid, look down between your feet, and you’ll see parallel waving lines etching the pavement along the quiet, narrow block. Those lines mark the old city shoreline, before hundreds of abandoned ships formed new land claiming the bay, when San Francisco was a very different place.

Hotaling Place may be the most unique street in the city and holds centuries of secrets that are rooted in a time when it wasn’t called San Francisco, or even America.

The little fishing village of Yerba Buena was part of Mexico until July 9, 1846, when US Navy officer John B. Montgomery landed his ship on this shore and planted an American flag at what is now Portsmouth Square (named after his ship).

Within two years, with the end of the Mexican-American War, the land became part of the United States, and Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco.

Hotaling Place, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings

The Gold Rush that followed changed the growing town beyond all recognition. Its population grew from 1,000 to 25,000 in a year, with thousands more forty-niners leaving ships abandoned there and heading to the Sierra Nevada for gold. Those 500 ships and newly built wharves grabbed some 50 city blocks from the water. This old buried shoreline lies where Hotaling Place’s line curves along the alley.

The street earned its name from pioneering entrepreneur Anson Parsons Hotaling, who built his exquisite Italianate business headquarters at 451 Jackson St. in 1866. (Hotaling also owned Hotaling Annex West across the street. That later became a gathering place for artists and writers in between their work shipbuilding during World War II.) In the early 1900s, Hotaling’s chief line of work was booze, and his company was described as “the biggest warehouse for booze in the west.” Gallons of whiskey were stored there when the earthquake hit in 1906, and while nearly every building in the area was razed by the shake and subsequent fire, Hotaling’s whiskey store somehow survived. Archives report that a mile-long fire hose that ran from Fisherman’s Wharf extinguished the flames.

The Oakland Tribune, May 17, 1906.

Archival/Oakland Tribune

Hotaling, an opportunist who knew how to make a buck, promptly ran ads in Bay Area newspapers after the quake boasting that his liquor reserve survived, and if readers sent money he would ship them his “Old Kirk” whiskey. Though, likely due to the destruction of the city’s bank offices, he requested only “coin,” noting that “checks and exchanges are useless at this point.”

For those inclined toward the supernatural, a story shared on a ghost tour of the alley tells of a stampede of cattle rushing down the narrow street on a foggy day. The ghost cows are said to be the specters of the livestock that ran through the city during the chaos of April 1906.

Hotaling Place, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings

While it’s impossible to verify if this actually happened on this street, there were instances of cattle fleeing their pastures across the city in Cow Hollow and running through the smoldering ruins. It was an eerie sight amid the darkest days of San Francisco. As one police officer described to the press: “The noise and the dust, and the feeling of destruction, all combined to daze a man. All about us houses were tumbling, and falling walls and chimneys and cornices were crushing men and horses in the street.”

(In other bovine-related earthquake incidents, the New York Times reported shortly after the disaster that a cow in Point Reyes was swallowed whole by a crack in the earth on the San Andreas Fault.)

The street was also known for the horse stables at 32-34 Hotaling. The alley was a hub for horse-drawn streetcars that used the road and stables as a turnaround point.

Hotaling Place, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings

One of the most stunning structures still standing, which feels like it could line a cobbled alley in Victorian London, is the red-brick back entrance of what is now the Barbarossa Lounge, which fronts onto 714 Montgomery St. That structure also reportedly survived the earthquake And, similarly to Hotaling, an advertisement for the grocers that operated there in San Francisco’s Italian newspaper, L’Italia, in October 1907 said they continued to sell “excellent and select liquor.”

Neighboring that building is a somewhat foreboding brick structure that has housed private members club Villa Taverna since the 1950s. Between two medieval-looking lanterns, a goddess with wheat and snakes (this appears to be Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest) looks out over the alley, ensuring only those with invitations pass through the doors. The marble sculpture was erected above the doors in the 1950s, and the owner claims it was an ancient Roman piece gifted by the Italian government.

Hotaling Place, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings

That building backs onto 716 Montgomery, another structure as old as the city; it was built in 1849 from the wreck of a ship named The Georgean. That building became an art studio after the earthquake and was visited by Frida Kahlo, according to historian Nancy Boas.

The street is now lined with art galleries, designer showrooms and high-end clubs, but until as late as the 1970s, Hotaling Place was described as a “dirty little old alley” in the press, as it had been for years.

After the earthquake in 1906, religious leaders in San Francisco blamed the Barbary Coast’s vices for the disaster, declaring that the event that took thousands of lives was a wrathful God’s retribution on the dirty town.

Hotaling Place, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings

One plaque, on the corner of Hotaling and Washington today, quotes the words of poet Charles K. Field on finding the building undamaged after so many churches crumbled.

If, as they say, God spanked the town
For being over-frisky,
Why did He burn His churches down,
And spare Hotaling’s whiskey?

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Silent film star Buster Keaton made films by letting places speak to him. While Keaton is most often remembered for his infamous imperturbability – his “Big Stone Face” never saw the chaos around him – stands out in many of his films nearing their 100th. His approach to screenwriting has been a beginning and an end to plan without worrying about what happened in between. He was inspired by a site; Gags arose from the details of the place.

Keaton and his fellow stars Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd all played with space in a way that makes it uniquely rewarding to find, visit, and study their filming locations. This is why film historian John Bengtson’s project to locate and remember the places where this silent comedy triumvirate filmed is particularly instructive.

Bengtson’s most incredible discovery – a seemingly nondescript T-shaped alley in the heart of Hollywood – appears in numerous silent films, including three on the National Film Registry, films kept by the Library of Congress for cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.

The alley is the setting for one of Keaton’s most memorable stunts in the 1922 film Cops. He is running down the alley with a horde of cops who are insanely pursued. When he reaches the end, he stops in the street and looks back at the clumsy mob stumbling after him. A car drives past and Keaton holds on and flies behind the vehicle from the off. It’s pretty easy compared to some of his more elaborate stunts – but it became one of his most iconic spectacles.

Public domain; Courtesy John Bengtson

The place where Chaplin finds the eponymous child, whom he adopted in his 1921 masterpiece The Kid, is just a stone’s throw from where the cops were chasing Keaton. Harold Lloyd also sneaks through the alley to sneak late to work with his safety load! (1923). These three films on the National Film Registry are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to films made in the alley. It also appears in two other Keaton short films – Neighbors (1920) and My Wife’s Relations (1922) -. Groundbreaking director Lois Weber hit the boys straight to the point and shot Where are my children? in the alley in 1916, the same year Cleo Madison set up Eleanor’s Catch there. It also appeared in the series The Purple Mask (1917), the Al Christie comedies Hubby’s Night Out (1917) and All Jazzed Up (1920), Gale Henry’s The Detectress (1919), a star vehicle for the illusionist Harry Houdini called The. on Grim Game (1919), Ben Turpin’s Ten Dollars or Ten Days (1924) and a 1925 newspaper drama, The Last Edition.

As a filming location, the alley had a lot in its favor. Since it runs east to west, it was well lit and fairly quiet all day, says Bengtson. And at a time when studios were expanding, much of Hollywood was still orchards, open lots, or vacant fields; There weren’t many urban looking intersections to choose from. For a while, he adds, “it was essentially the only street in town”.

Courtesy John Bengtson / Public Domain

Bengtson – whose books Silent Echoes, Silent Traces and Silent Visions the Steps of Keaton, Chaplin and was filmed in San Francisco, not far from his place of residence.

When Bengtson visited the Daydreams locations, he found that things were very different. A scene near Lombard Street – famous today for its eight hairpin turns – had been filmed before construction began, so those attributes didn’t yet exist. “I was blown away because I realized that there was actually some history going on,” says Bengtson. “It’s not just the same place then and now.” The film froze a place in time while the real spaces developed, changed and aged.

Not long after this initial discovery, Bengtson was searching vintage photos of Los Angeles in an archive when he noticed a photo taken near the intersection of Hollywood and Cahuenga Boulevards. In the photo there was an alley south of the intersection with some signs on either side of the entrance. He immediately recognized it as the setting for Keaton’s cops autograb stunt. When Bengtson was finally able to visit the alley months later to see if it was still there, he found that it looked much the same and that it was also the location of another scene from cops where Keaton’s hand is bitten by one Dog. This sequence was filmed at the other end of the top of the “T” where the alley meets Cosmo Street.

Before Bengtson’s rediscovery of the site and his work on cataloging the silent films they used (which he recorded in his books and continues to describe on his blog Silent Locations), the alley was gradually fading from the collective mind. Although it appears in Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood, Bengtson believes it is unlikely that Burton knew the alley’s place in cinema history. “In my opinion, this was not an homage, just a functional, real Hollywood location,” he says.

EaCa Alley, photographed in 2013. It was reinterpreted a little during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alissa Walker / CC by-SA 2.0

If Bengtson has his way, however, there will be a tribute to the place: he wants the city to celebrate history by naming part of the Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley passage. He shared it on his blog, where he offers free PDF guides for DIY tours of the nearby filming locations, and recently produced a video about the alley that is currently banned as an outdoor dining area during COVID-19, but is going today mostly flanked by chic restaurants, cozy lofts and office space. He emphasizes that he does not want to rename the longer north-south section that runs parallel to Cahuenga Boulevard. This part already has a name – East Cahuenga Alley (or EaCa Alley for short) – and has become a hip hangout thanks to the revitalization by the EaCa Alley Association.

However, the vertical part of the alley is currently nameless. Much like the Music Box Steps in Silverlake, christened for their appearance in the 1932 Laurel and Hardy short film The Music Box, Bengtson wants film history to show up on the map.

“I can absolutely guarantee that nowhere are three of the greatest stars and three of their most important films to be found in one place.”

David Gadja, president of the EaCa Alley Association, is thrilled with Bengtson’s proposal and says he and his colleagues are thrilled with the opportunity to have the top east-west portion of the alley named in homage to Chaplin, Keaton. and Lloyd. ”Gadja and Bengtson have maintained a dialogue, but ultimately it’s not up to them. Urban bureaucracy is often labyrinthine, so it’s hard to say what the best way to go, especially in the midst of a global pandemic when officials have so much else to worry about. For now, Bengtson’s goal is to get the word wide and wide in the hope that the proposal will find widespread support. “Once enough people know about the alley, the right people will know about the alley, and once the right people know about the alley, it will happen,” he says.

He argues convincingly that there is no better place to honor Hollywood in its creation. There are a few other places where Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd’s paths crossed – on a cliff in Santa Monica and at a long-ruined Pasadena train station – but this place is special. “I can absolutely guarantee that nowhere are three of the biggest stars and three of their most important films in one place,” says Bengtson. “That’s absolutely two or three layers above anything I’ve ever found.”

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