Tiny foot-square rugs were therefore more of a possibility for working-class families, made from worn-out clothes and scraps of cloth left over from sewing projects. For most people during the period, without access to local offcuts, this would have been a luxury. A rug that is merely three foot long by two foot wide consumes the equivalent of three blan- kets in its construction. I have made a number of these rugs in different styles, fol- lowing the two main techniques of the day, by using a metal hook to pull strips through a sacking backing, or by plaiting together strips of cloth into a single length that is then coiled into a spiral and sewn in place.
Those living near a mill could afford some early-morning foot warmth due to the cheap supply of loom ends and spoilt goods availab le. These were very simple to produce but required a significant amount of material. If you were fortunate and lived in a textile-weaving district, such as parts of Yorkshire, rag rugs were a popular solution.
Among the less wealthy, underfoot provision was scarce. Handsome woven carpets in the best bedrooms, but even in the upper echelons of society the rooms of sons and daughters of ten had to make do with an old rug that had seen better service in a more prominent part of the house. Once you were up, to add warmth and comfort to an other- wise chilled start, at any hour, you would hope to step out on to a mat rather than the bare wooden floor. With a population of only two thousand, Baldock still had a sufficient number of early-morning workers on the railway, in the brewing industry and at a host of small workshops to keep a knocker -upper in employment. Such men could be found in industrial towns and cities across Britain from Portsmouth to Inverness, even extending to smaller market towns such as Baldock in Hertfordshire, where one of the three local breweries employed a man to wake their draymen at a.m.
He work ed through the night and into the early morning, each of his numerous customers paying a penny a month for his services. For the knocker-upper, however, a capital investment in a timepiece could provide the basis of a meagre livelihood. One of the reasons for his unusual profession was that clocks and watches were expensive items and few working-class people could afford their own. Armed with a long cane and a lantern, a knocker-upper wandered the streets at all hours, tapping on the windowpanes of his clients. For those who had to keep very early hours and be punctual, such as factory workers, the services of a ‘knocker -upper’ wer e invaluable. Dawn w as the signal for mo st working people to rise, but m any men had more fixed hours of waking.
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