I just read (for some reason) Wuthering Heights, and I believe Heathcliff states “To bed by 9, up by 4”. I don’t recall if it varied by season or not.
I assume if you’re getting up at 4 in the morning, you’re going to fall asleep even if it’s light out til midnight.
Shag, in the summer it’s light here until around 9:00 p.m. during Daylight Saving Time. That would be 8:00 p.m. Standard Time, would it not?
Since the majority of pre-industrial people were involved in agriculturally related jobs, they did, in fact, change their schedules seasonally. Different things were done in the winter than in the summer.
Most people went to bed at dusk. Candles were not used nearly as much as we imagine. They were expensive. According to Dale Taylor in “Everyday Life in Colonial America,” a typical family might have only 100 candle a year! It took a lot of beeswax or bayberries to make a candle. Most candles were used for short-term uses like lighting the way from the hearth to bed.
Good oil lamps not available in America until after the Revolution.
I wake up at the time I want to. I usually turn off the alarm before it rings.
In medieval times there was one group which was concerned with clocks and regulating their lives by them. Monks. Monastic orders practiced matins, which involved getting up at a set time in the middle of the the night for worship services, and in the 13th century they were developing mechanical time keeping devices, to improve on existing water clocks and the like. Whether you might recognize it as an “alarm clock” or not, they did develop devices intended to aid them in their rigidly scheduled religious observances. James Burke covered this in his old “Connections” program.
I used to work with a guy who could wake at any time he liked. When we were out surveying in the middle of nowhere we would all have a nap and Dave would “program” himself to wake at the alloted time. He never failed us.
He never used an alarm clock and claimed to be able to wake up within a minute or two of the chosen time. On the strength of his lunchtime naps he may have been right.
Isn’t it obvious? A Knocker-Knocker-Up.
And I already know what your next question’s gonna be… so let me stop you right there. It’s Knocker-Ups all the way down.
If would be useful if someone could confirm or deny the truth of what follows:
Link.
[QUOTE=cmyk]
Isn’t it obvious? A Knocker-Knocker-Up.
This is not quite the case.
A Knocker-Up usually worked nights and would, on his way home, knock up the day shift.
As has been mentioned upthread he would be paid a few pence for this extra work, sometimes his employers would pay, sometimes the people he knocked up.
Interesting!
I assume I’m not the only American giggling like a 12 year-old here?
[QUOTE=chowder]
Obviously in the days before sexual-harassment lawsuits.
cock.
I’m reading part of Dumas’ Three Musketeers saga now. In this and other stories of his, he has people staying up until all hours of the morning as a matter of course. I’ve noticed this in other writings, too, everything from the 17th to the 19th century. People like Oscar Wilde and such having “dinner” at something like 9 or 10pm and not going home until 3 or 4am. I’m sure tradesmen and the like had to get up earlier, but I always wonder about the hours these people keep when I read about them.
This pic says it all.
I can confirm that with first hand knowledge. I lived in Nunavut just south of the arctic circle for about 2.5 years.
For a month on either side of the summer solstice, the sun dipped just below the horizon, but it never got so dark that street lights would come on. I loved summer - there was activity close to 24 hours per day. Often, I would go fishing at the end of the work day and stay out there until just about midnight. I had to force myself to go to sleep to get rest to work the next day. It wasn’t that I was actually tired. I would often wake up at 4am to a bright sunlight and start my day. Kids would play in the streets until midnight and start up again by 5am. Toward the end of the summer, adults would be busy with construction and other tasks at all hours, trying to get everything done before the onset of the coming winter season.
It was very much the opposite during the time around the winter solstice. It would be dark until about 10:30 am, and then a very prolonged dawn would take place. The sun would make a brief appearance about 1 or 2 degrees above the horizon at noon for an hour. It would be pitch black again by 2:30. I was OK with the morning until the sun set in the afternoon(although repeatedly waking up and getting going when the temperature is -40 and its pitch black outside does get old quickly). However, I would drag my ass every afternoon until quitting time at 5. It was as if I took the darkness as a cue that the day was over and I should be at home.
There were many blizzards that roared through the region during the winter that shut down all activity leaving people (us southerners anyway) housebound for a few days at a time. I had no trouble sleeping for 12 hours at a time during those blizzards. I kind of liked the blizzards. Having a full pantry, knowing that no one was doing anything differently was a comforting feeling.
Obviously, I preferred the summer light. Some people had difficulty with it. It totally threw off their sleep schedule. Even in a darkened room, they had trouble sleeping knowing that it was light outside.
Can a knocker-up sleep so soundly that even he couldn’t wake himself up?
Count me in as well…
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
Nothing to do with sexual harassment but it was extremely inadvisable to upset your knocker-upper.
To turn in late for work meant the sack…on the spot 
Once word got around that you were unreliable you’d have a bloody hard time finding work and in days of yore there was no unemployment benefits
[QUOTE=chowder]
But once you got the sack, could you be knocked up in the sack? 
Most people didn’t have ways to artificially light their homes well. Old style candles are not very illuminatory, and using many of them at a time is an extravagence, which is why a chandellier, which requires lots of candles, is something found in the homes of the wealthy.
When it goes dark, what are ya gonna do?
Please note, of course, that in northern climes, like England, it don’t get dark at 8 an awfully long part of the year. 
