Mary Smith, knocker-up of Limehouse Fields.
I’m not one for watching much telly, but having spent a great deal of time in hospital wards and waiting rooms of late, one soon learns that the idiot lantern is the designated panacea to the whiling away of interminable hour after hour. At least on-ward you can switch the bally thing off, read a book or bash merry hell out of the laptop, but in waiting rooms the brain-rot that is Daytime TV is as good as any bottle of valium to send the assembled masses into a comatose state. Beats a cannula any day!
Anyway, the point I’m getting to is that a couple of weeks ago, one of those exciting (yawn) house makeover programmes was on where giggly couples buy a house (often a nice Victorian or Edwardian one, replete with oodles of charm and original local features intact) at auction. They then gut it completely (you know he sort of thing: strip out the original cast iron fireplace and replace it with an spaceship-silver Ikea one with white pebbles and a glowing aura ball ‘cos it’s trendy), it and turn the whole shebang into another uPVC double-glazed clone that could be plonked down on suitable foundations almost anywhere in the country.
Anyway, and I’m really getting there; in this particular edition one of the auctioned houses was in a mining village in Nottingham or Derby and still had a slate embedded in the brickwork by the front door upon which the miners used to write the time that they needed knocking up to start shift down t’mine (my wife is from the area, so I’m allowed to speak and write in the vernacular).
Anyway, and the crux of this story is looming larger now; in the East End, where life for the employed was forever balanced on a knife-edge, where unpunctuality could mean instant dismissal and a speedy spiral for them and their family into poverty, homelessness and destitution, those working unsocial hours, such as the market workers of Limehouse Fields, employed a knocker-up.
Mary Smith of Brenton Street (above), was paid sixpence a week per client to shoot dried peas at their bedroom window to get them up in the early hours of the morning.
Not too difficult to imagine her husky voice and rheumy eye cackling over a mid-morning teapot of gin with Betsy Prig and Sairey Gamp…
Basilica Fields 
February 4, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Oh, come on Adrian… where is the detail? what size were the peas and where did she buy them? You will have to work hard on those questions because you and I both know that the answers are not in the book! Mind you, I am not sure about Betsy or Sairey…
Have you ever wondered as to how the photographer took such a picture at the time of day when the good lady was earning her crust?
regards, Graham
February 5, 2011 at 12:58 am
Well they were obviously dried Essex peas brought to town on the renowned 1pm Saturdays only Green Pea Specials that ran between Marks Tey and Bishopsgate, and no doubt sold to her by the very market traders who she knocked up every morning.
The size would, I expect, depend entirely upon the size of the virgin pea and the length of time it was dried for.
Is there a formula for pea shrinkage?
And as for the time of the photo – obviously a Victorian version of Blue Peter: Mary Smith knocks up her clients with peas, and here’s a photo we prepared earlier.
All this knocking up probably explains the high population in the Victorian East End.
February 5, 2011 at 9:10 pm
I’d like to comment on this, especially as my mother, brought up in Poplar but now long passed on, remembered a man with a long cane employed for such purpose. I wonder if Mary S was a commercial rival? It would seem to me that the man/cane combination would have the edge – more accurate and no consumables.
I’ve found your recent articles interesting, but as Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “…whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must keep silent”. (Brown trains, etc.) He said that in 1922, so it was pre-grouping wisdom.
I’m sorry to read of your involvement with hospitals. I had put your relatively light postings down to commitments with the “day job”. I hope things are improving now.
February 6, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Very interesting comment about the man with the cane. How he coped with upper rooms in three story (or higher) buildings is intriguing; he either had a very long reach, or spent much of his time running up and down stairs.
Perhaps the style of building dictated the approach – pea or cane.
Unfortunately visits to the hospital continue apace, though it’s one of the kids, not me who is receiving treatment. Thanks for your comments.
February 6, 2011 at 9:24 pm
I’m sorry to hear about the kiddie – but the hopes for improvement are reiterated.
A good point about high windows – though how much aim-off to allow in high winds such as we’re having now?
Going back to Graham’s point about the photo, I once knew an aspiring Fleet St photographer, who in dull conditions and using the vernacular would have said, “Try a fortnight at f five-six”. Definitely a posed photo.
March 31, 2011 at 8:09 pm
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April 10, 2012 at 10:26 am
The lady in the picture is my other half’s Great Great Grandmother. She was asked to pose for this picture, which she did gladly. Apparently, this caused quite a stir at the time. Granny Smith also subsequently had a book written about her by an American author. Incidentally, Granny Smith was born Mary Ann Mendoza, niece of Daniel Mendoza, the English bare knuckle boxing champion back in the 1790’s.
January 11, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Mary Ann Mendoza (married to Thomas Smith) is my Great Grandmother,in fact two of her Grand children are still alive and in their 90’s!! My Father use to tell me of stories of Her and my Grandmother Ellen (who also took on the role too) she ( Ellen) is featured on a set of Churchman’s Cigarette cards
she was also known as Molly Moore ( her married name) this was to do with “In Town Tonight” in 1936-37. I have been researching this side of the family tree,
I am proud to have such a very interesting family
March 3, 2014 at 5:26 pm
Tina & Chopper 2456 – sorry I’ve taken so long to reply.
Many thanks for both of your comments which are fascinating. The personal element adds a new dimension to both this blog and my project, and I’m grateful you’ve shared a little of your very interesting family history here.