“Come Back to Erin,” “I Cannot Sing The Old Songs,” “Strangers Yet,” “You and I,” and “Take Back the Heart” are just a few of composer/poet Claribel’s many works. Charlotte Alington Barnard was born in England in 1830 to a middle class family, where she began writing poetry and setting famous poets’ works to music as a little girl. Throughout the 1860s and beyond, her work became very popular and she was brought under contract by publisher Boosey and Sons (later to become Boosey and Hawkes Ltd.). Her father fled to Belgium in 1868 after declaring bankruptcy, where Charlotte and her husband Charles joined him. Returning to England the following year on holiday, Charlotte contracted typhoid fever and died soon afterward (Dover, 1869).
Source: Gill Chatfield – Louth Museum