The ‘knocker-up’ has really captivated us here at the Modern Backdrop HQ. In this weeks’ blog post we are coming back to share our progress in trying to identify who this person was in Salford during the middle of the last century.
When we first posted about the ‘knocker-up’ in April this year, we posted a picture which we found in the Walter Greenwood Collection. The photograph was taken of a ‘knocker-up’ in Moss Side, Manchester, and not Salford where Greenwood grew up and set his most known and highly successful novel, Love on the Dole. It is unlikely the ‘knocker-up’ working in Moss Side was the same one waking up the mill and factory workers of Salford! Looking at the other photos in the archive, I think this one has been kept as a visual example of the life and times Greenwood described in his novel and his autobiography, There Was a Time published in 1967 – presumably because a photo of a ‘knocker-up’ in Salford couldn’t be found at the time.
When we first shared the Moss Side image, we asked people whether they knew the identity of the ‘knocker-up’ for Salford. We got a few comments and suggestions through Facebook. Jack Shaw commented that the ‘knocker-up’ at his wife’s home in Gibson Street in Pendleton was called Bella Locket. We trawled through the photos on Digital Salford and found this image, which was used on a postcard sent from a boy to his mother in Belfast around 1908. Could this be Bella?
Since then, there have been a few more comments. Most recently Ray Ogden on Facebook has commented that his gran was a knocker upper when she lived in Arthur Street. So clearly there was more than one! In fact we have also found this photo on Digital Salford showing women from the King William IV Pub on an outing to Blackpool. The women fourth from the left (presumable on the front row) is described as ‘Mrs Leech, who was the Knocker-Up from Robert Hall, West Park, West Worsley, Tatton St, Oxford St and Lynton St.’
Ref: HK02076, Digital Salford
We would love to hear from anyone who knows more about the role of the ‘knocker-up’– for example did individuals look after their own street, or did they cover a few streets? Were they paid for the work and by who? Were they typically women or did me do the job too? And were they doing this alongside other sorts of work? Get in touch.
I remember Bella, although I was very young. I lived in Penny Street and she used to knock on the upstairs window to wake my dad up. She used to come round on Friday to collect her money. She had a Silver Cross Pram, loaded with firewood, she used to run a ‘sweep ‘ don’t know what that really was. She had money in her sock to lend out. She was scary to us kids then.
Thanks for commented Ros – this is really interesting! So it sound sounds like Bella was was doing a few jobs to make a living. Does anyone else know what a ‘sweep’ was?