From candles that drop metal nails to the knocker uppers of industrial Britain, people devised plenty of cunning ways to ensure a timely wake-up before alarm clocks came along.
Water clocks, known as a clepsydra in Ancient Greece, were widespread for centuries, and the philosopher Plato is credited with first adapting one into an alarm in the 5th Century BC. He trapped air inside a vessel which water was flowing into; as the water increased so did the pressure, eventually resulting in a loud kettle-like whistle. Water clocks were also some of the earliest automated village bells, notes Champion. They used large basins of water which when drained would lead to the striking of a bell – one 12th Century chronicle records such a water reservoir being used to put out a fire.
The first mechanical clocks – meaning oscillating mechanisms that mark the passing of time, linked to an escapement that counted these beats – first arrived at the end of the 13th and early 14th Centuries.
"From very early they sometimes played tunes before the ringing of bells," says Champion. By the later 15th Century, domestic wall clocks also began having alarms, set using a pin, he says. "The alarm was a bell chime, and later repeated striking of a small bell."
Knocker uppers
Clockmaking advanced significantly in the 17th Century, says Handley, and there is evidence of people "mackling up their own alarm clocks when they go travelling, for example", she says. The first known mechanical alarm clock was invented in 1787, although it was only after the first patent was registered in 1876 that production became more widespread. Still, these wound spring alarm clocks were both unreliable and too expensive to be widely available for most people.
In the industrial revolution, though, sleep requirements changed for many people, and knocker uppers, with their rods, sticks and peashooters, became prevalent across the growing industrial towns of Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and in east London.
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Comments
> "In many pre-industrial societies, daily life followed the rhythm of sunrise and sunset, which naturally shaped circadian rhythms."
Having an office job that allows for flexible hours, I start my working day at different times during the year. Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me up, but it is there just in case.
Overall, I feel that I am less stressed, sleep better and have more energy that if I force myself a schedule to wake up. What I have is a schedule to go to sleep, the rest I leave to nature.
> Mary Smith, a much-loved knocker upper in East London
Great picture.
By pinkmuffinere 2026-03-134:012 reply > Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me up
Funny enough, I have the same strategy but the exact opposite experience -- it _almost always_ wakes me up, even when it's set for 11 am. I don't disagree with you though, I just think it's funny how different human experience is. And there are benefits too, it's easy for me to stay up late, and a lot of my best work comes naturally at 1 am. But basically nothing good happens before noon.
By al_borland 2026-03-136:20 I think the important part was that they also had a schedule for sleep. That’s the real key to a natural wake up.
I’ve struggled with the decision to go to sleep my whole life. If left to my own devices I’d effectively have a 28-30 hour day and my sleep/wake times would continuously shift.
By FreePalestine1 2026-03-135:121 reply I'm pretty much the same. Nothing done before noon. I show up to the office on time just for the sake of it, I then get my work done at night. My manager is okay with it but it is not sustainable, I feel like it takes unnecessary time out of my day. But it is genuinely hard.
By pinkmuffinere 2026-03-136:56 Can you negotiate with your manager about start time? I know it will depend on the exact team, but n my old team I would walk into the office at like 10:30 every day, and then stay in the office till about 7-8 every evening. I wasn't secretive about it, but nobody was upset, it was obvious that I was staying later to get work done.
By seemaze 2026-03-134:39 I've had the great privilege of working remote for quite a while. Unless I have an early flight to catch, I don't set an alarm. I tend to wake up within 60 min. of sunrise regardless of the season and fall asleep somewhere around T-8 hrs.
I can't tell you how much I'd dread having to be violently aroused from my slumber on an ongoing basis.
By duttish 2026-03-137:01 Flex work time is awesome. Other than flights I haven't set an alarm since before covid.
1.5 years of basically no irl social life and going to bed at 22 every day has really hammered home my rhythm. I still wake up around 06-07 every day.
One of the benefits of remote work is not waking up with an alarm clock. It's been so long I forgot how much that sucked. And the snooze button.
By EricBetts 2026-03-135:17 I think we might need another term for working both remote and with a flexible schedule. I'm working remote, have been at a few jobs, but while my location isn't an office, my schedule is fixed, the same as if I were going in.
By verma_yatharth 2026-03-136:52 Alarm clocks with needles have a huge error in minutes. I also suffered when I was a teenager.
By al_borland 2026-03-136:242 reply Do you not have to be online at a certain time when remote?
I’ve been remote for 6 years now, and did it on and off for a while before that. I’m still woken up by an alarm clock, because I can’t get myself to go to bed at a reasonable time, but have to be online for meetings and stuff and 9am… I think many would prefer 8am, but that’s just a symptom of a broken meeting culture.
By asdff 2026-03-136:41 For me I just wake up at about the same time every day, and that is ahead of anything on the schedule. It isn't like you might end up sleeping another couple hours. I physically can't sleep past 8 hours or so.
By tayo42 2026-03-1315:57 9 or 10am means going to sleep by 1 or 2am, idk wasn't an issue for me to be up, even at my worst phase of stay up smoke weed and watch TV lol
“Most Indians [= indigenous Americans] did not know how old they were. They measured time in days, moons, and winters, but they had no weeks, hours, or minutes. On the eve of an important event, when they were afraid they might oversleep in the morning—for example, when a war party discovered an enemy camp and wanted to make sure to wake up and attack it at first light—Indians would drink a lot of water before going to bed.” — Ian Frazier, Great Plains (1989), p. 48.
> but they had no weeks, hours, or minutes.
I don't think this is true.
We (Asian) Indians make a big deal out of beginning and doing important tasks at auspicious times. That wouldn't be possible without some means of measuring time of day even if its not perfect.
Edit: updated for clarity and leaving original comment as is.
By triceratops 2026-03-134:332 reply Indigenous Americans. Not East Indians.
I have often wondered why it is still acceptable to call Native Americans "Indians".
It is an extremely colonial term, but its used in the country that is the most sensitive about using such terminology. It originates in a marketing term to cover the failure of someone who was, among other things, a slave trader.
On top of that it is ambiguous and often causes confusion, as here, so its not even a useful term.
Surely its time to drop it?
By marcellus23 2026-03-1314:55 The other comments make good points but also want to point out that that quote was written 37 years ago.
If you are interested in the counter argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ
By graemep 2026-03-1311:19 It does not explain why the term "American Indian" (which it says the series will use) is preferable to "Native American" or "Indigenous American".
it does use a term ("first peoples") which avoids using American and is not used outside North America as far as I know.
Grouping people that way in general is barbaric anyway. There's no great answer. "Native American" is a colonial term too. What do they call themselves? It's up to them. Actually, it's up to the individual what they prefer. I don't like being labeled an "American".
By graemep 2026-03-1311:14 > Actually, it's up to the individual what they prefer.
If referring to a group you cannot use a term that all individuals prefer as they will have different preferences. In general certain terms are not used - for example one for black people is never even written out in full by Americans. If one person said "I am fine with being called that" does not mean the rest of us should use it because most people find it offensive.
> I don't like being labeled an "American".
Being called an American Indian (which is necessary to avoid ambiguity) also means you are labeled an American.
"American" is also derived from the name of someone problematic (he even took part in a slaving raid) but that is another issues.
Thanks for clarifying that. Considering HN's worldwide readership, I should have anticipated that misunderstanding when I posted the quotation. I have now added "[= indigenous Americans]" above.
My bad. I too should have considered that the term "Indians" is ambiguous and should have looked up the reference book. Thought the title "Great Plains" was referring to plains including the Indo-Gangetic plain.
Is "East Indians" the commonly used name in the US for the people of India ? I've come across "Asian Indians".
By tkgally 2026-03-136:19 Interesting question. My impression from afar (I live in Japan) is that “Asian Indians” and “East Indians” are both used but that just “Indians” is increasingly common, partly because of the growth in the number of people in the U.S. from India and partly because of the growing tendency in recent decades to avoid using “Indian” to refer to native Americans. Wikipedia has a long article on the latter issue:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controver...
By ta8903 2026-03-136:15 "Indian" is the commonly used term for the people from India as far as I know. You don't very often see that cohort referred to by some other term.
By qup 2026-03-135:46 I would have thought the war parties of the great plains would give it away.
By al_borland 2026-03-136:28 I first learned this from Lisa Simpson.
By keiferski 2026-03-1311:19 When researching my ancestry, I came across someone with the last name Budzik, which literally means alarm clock in contemporary Polish. Historically it was tied to the verb budzić, to wake up, so I imagine either my great-great-great grandfather worked as a waker-upper…or he snored a lot.
