Certificate of marriage (to William Pickles, Farmer of Barrowford) gives father's name as Henry (deceased, labourer).

We can eliminate these candidate birth records for which I have certificates:

1858 Mar Manchester 8d 271 Ellen Swift (daughter of John Swift, a hawker, and Sarah Malia)
1858 Sep Bolton 8c 290 Ellen Swift (daughter of William Swift, a journeyman boiler maker, and Sarah Marsh)
1856 Dec Chorlton 8c 491 Mary Ellen Swift (daughter of James Beever Swift, an iron turner, and Mary Ann Shepherd)

The following were kindly checked for me by Manchester Register Office (condition: father's name Henry) in Aug 2008, and can also be eliminated:
1854 Manchester/Ardwick ARD/31/32 Ellen Jane Swift
1856 Manchester/Hulme HUL/74/37 Mary Ellen Swift
1858 Manchester/Ardwick ARD/50/11 Isabella Swift

The birth certificate (GRO ref: 1858 Mar Manchester 8d 271) for Ellen Swift, 18 Feb 1858, 3 Welchs? Court, Manchester, gives father as John Swift (Hawker) and mother as Sarah Malia. We can find this family in the 1861 census at 3 Walshs Court without Ellen, who presumaby died in infancy (there are some possible death records). The same family turns up in Bradford in 1871 and 1881. Conclusion: Ellen Pickles nee Swift is not the daughter of John Swift and Sarah Malia.

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It's not unlikely that Ellen met her husband-to-be William at the very church where they are both buried. The private road leading to Oaklands (where Ellen was in service to Thomas Barrowford) meets Church Street (where William lived in 1881) opposite St Thomas' Church. St Thomas' burned down in the 1960s.

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The following is based on family stories.

In service from age 11.

Learned to write by copying eldest son's homework on slate. (But this may be untrue. She signed her own name on the marriage register in 1887.)

From "Just an Average Person":

Ellen was born in 1857. She was unlucky. She was born too soon to benefit by the Education Laws of the 1870s. By the time she was ten years old, she had lost both her parents. However, she was not entirely alone. She accepted responsibility for her younger brother and younger sister. Why these three little ones did not find themselves in the town orphanage is not known. They were not separated. A family took them in and gave Ellen work, as a domestic. To work at the age of ten was not unusual in those times. It meant that the three children had shelter and were fed. The home family was of a religious disposition. Discipline was strict. Ellen did much of the cleaning. She secured the house at nightfall. One night Ellen failed to close the window shutters properly. A storm passed over. Some damage was caused. Ellen was soundly ‘birched on the bare’ for her lapse. The tale has been carried through to the generations born since.

From Ellen’s wages, which would have been less than 12 pounds a year, she sent the two young siblings to a Dames School. She saved pennies. She paid the fees. At night, when her work was finished, she made her brother and sister tell her what they had been taught in school that day. She learned basic reading and simple arithmetic from them. This was the beginning of her passion for education.

Time passed and her brother, Jim, eventually became what was referred to in those days as 'well placed'. He became independent of Ellen. He climbed his own ladder to responsibility. He became the Master of Salford Workhouse [probably Burnley Union Workhouse - see 1901 census]. Charles Dickens was to write of these places. Jim had some considerable power and influence. The sister, Anne, became a schoolteacher. She never married.

Jim Swift attended Ellen’s funeral. The old man wept brokenheartedly. He said: "Dear Ellen, she was mother and father to both of us. Without her, we would have been nothing." This was his epitaph for his sister, Ellen.

Ellen had been brought up at a time of great change in the region. There were new industries starting up. It was a region, where a new industrial economy was beginning to replace the agrarian economy that had lasted for many hundreds of years. At the forefront of these changes were the canals companies. Speculative companies were formed to provide this new way to convey goods to markets. Goods were generally moved slowly over rough roads by horses dragging a cart. The canals enabled the goods to be pulled by a horse upon a smooth waterway that ran into the centre of the cities. The barges could hold up to 500 times the value of goods that were loaded onto a cart. On the alternative route, the owners of rights-of-way to extract tolls had not repaired their rights-of-way. The roads were often impassable for weeks through damage caused by rain. This happened throughout the year. The canals only ceased to function in the deep freezes, which never lasted long. Every household could benefit from the reliable delivery of coal for factories' furnaces and workers' home fires.