Whoo-wee, folks, I’m so sorry it’s been so long, but boy have I got something special for you. I've been sitting on this theory for over three years now, and I think I've amassed enough evidence to make a compelling case that Charlotte Alington Barnard was, in some way or another, a queer woman.

Obligatory historical disclaimer: none of our current labels had been dreamt up in Claribel’s era, so neither she nor anybody else would have understood gender and sexuality like we do. The 1860s is the decade when the first recognizable modern understandings of queerness emerged, thanks to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and his various writings on the subject. I have no idea how much traction his work gained outside his native Germany, though, and I would be shocked if an upper-class Englishwoman like Claribel knew anything about Ulrichs and his works. Nonetheless, I think there’s more than enough evidence in Claribel’s life and writings to indicate that she was queer in some form.

I originally drew up this timeline for someone who hadn't yet had me infodump in her direction about Claribel in general. I've decided to leave in the biographical context, because it's handy to have it all in one place… but at the same time, this thing has ballooned into at least three emails’ worth of content, rather than the one (1) I’d initially planned. If all goes well, I should be able to send one part per week for the next few weeks — which is great timing because October is also LGBTQ History Month!

Without further ado, then, here’s part 1 of my massive deep dive into all the poems, letters, anecdotes, and sundry that make me think Claribel was gayer than anyone has previously realized.

1830

December 23: Miz thing herself is born to Henry Alington Pye and Charlotte Pye née Yerburgh, in what was then her family’s brand-new house called The Cedars. Still stands to this day in the little town of Louth, Lincolnshire.

1847

December 29: Charlotte’s mother dies of, seemingly, a chronic illness. Margaret Loft, a fellow Louth lady, relates some hearsay to an unnamed friend in a letter from January 13, 1848: that Charlotte Yerburgh Pye had been taking brandy so frequently that it weakened her stomach, often couldn’t keep food down, and in general had been ill for a while. I suspect the brandy was a 19th-century treatment for something, though I’ve got no clue what that could be.

Point being, it doesn’t ultimately seem to have worked. Young Charlotte and her father Henry are both devastated at her passing. One of the few surviving ephemera from Charlotte’s childhood is a calling card that must date to 1848, because it reads “Miss Alington Pye” and is bordered in black.

Late 1849

Charlotte gets engaged, with Henry Pye’s eventual consent, to a military dude called Charles Elmhirst. As Margaret Loft puts it in a letter from December:

[Miss Pye] is a most pleasing, unaffected girl, and Charles Elmhirst will have quite a treasure in her. Mr Pye has given his consent at last to their engagement. […] I see that Elmhirst is now senior Captain of the 9th. I should fancy he will sell out when he gets his Majority, and they will not be married until then, as she is only nineteen. I do not think her Papa would agree to spare her to go about with the Regiment.

1850 (by this time, at least)

The Hollway family has moved into Gunby Hall, near Candlesby in Lincolnshire. Gunby was built in 1700 for the Massingberd family, but from approximately 1847 to 1872, the Massingberds have to lease it out in order to pay off the debts accumulated by a family member known chiefly in the Gunby staff’s tour spiels as “Naughty Algernon.” Anyway, the house is occupied by the Hollway family, including eldest siblings Barbara and John George. I can honestly never keep straight which one of them is older.

Charlotte and her father spend Christmas 1850 at Gunby Hall with the Hollways, and also the Ingelows; Jean Ingelow, a poet who was incredibly famous in her era, was a first cousin to the Hollways.

1851-52

Whoo boy, some real crap is going down circa May 1851. As Margaret Loft’s sister writes to her that month:

The Hotchkins told us about poor Miss Pye and seemed to know all about it, perhaps not to the extent you mention. It is a most melancholy case, and the feelings of the poor father must be dreadful.

This sounds like it’s about Charles Elmhirst, and the wording makes it seem like their engagement has already crashed and burned by the time this letter gets posted. What exactly happens in this “most melancholy case,” I don’t know. Another letter from Margaret’s son James, in November 1851, offers more intrigue but few details:

What a shame it will be if Miss Pye marries Holloway [sic] after all; of the two I should certainly prefer the Elmhirst family but I suppose they fancy that Holloway [sic] may perhaps become a Judge when married to a Pye. I hope he will not put his foot in it. How fine it would be if Elmhirst were to marry an Earl’s daughter or something in that style. Harneis Waite said that Elmhirst had but two ideas, but still I think that was no excuse, as she must have known what he was when she was engaged to him. I am rather surprised that the Elmhirsts keep in with the Pyes after all that has happened.

So none of this actually reveals what the heck happened. The thing that intrigues me, though, is this: whatever was going on with Charles Elmhirst clearly wasn’t enough to cast a pall over his whole family in James Loft’s eyes. He says he’d still prefer that Charlotte marry an Elmhirst rather than a Hollway, and the phrasing of his last sentence — he’s “surprised that the Elmhirsts keep in with the Pyes,” emphases mine — makes it seem as if the Pyes also wronged the Elmhirsts in some way, or at least that James Loft thought such a thing. I may never figure out exactly what went down, though, unless there’s some undiscovered trove of letters or convenient newspaper article I can find. Sigh.

Anyway! The other main Plot Point of importance alluded to by this letter is Charlotte’s second engagement, to John George Hollway (not Holloway, as James Loft keeps spelling it), which was either official or imminent at this point judging from his words. This engagement lasts between six months and a year, and it ends because apparently Charlotte’s father intervenes to torpedo the romance. I still have no idea why. Phyllis Smith believes Henry Pye thought John George Hollway was too intense and passionate and high-strung for his also-emotionally-high-strung daughter. I don’t think that holds water, personally; I’ll explain why later in this timeline.

Both Charlotte and John go on post-breakup vacations — Charlotte joins some family friends in Europe for a spell, and John travels to Norway. He even writes a book about his experiences, called A Month in Norway, that gets published by John Murray (he of the Murray travel guides, I believe) as part of a travelogue-type series.

1854

May 18: Charlotte marries the Rev. Charles Cary Barnard at St. George’s, Hanover-square in London. The couple subsequently moves into the house called “The Firs,” on the other end of the big sloping lawn from Charlotte’s childhood home.

May 20: Henry Pye marries his second wife, Lady Albinia Hobart, in Sidmouth. Yes, he got remarried two days after his kid tied the knot.

Around this time, Charles takes up the rectories of St. Olave’s at Ruckland and Maidenwell with Farforth. He’s never much fond of being a clergyman, though — his father, the also Rev. Charles James Barnard, absolutely pushed his eldest into that career. A year later at most, Charlie quits his rectory job to be a trophy husband. I’m barely even kidding. Dude just wants to hunt and fish and play cricket and adore his wife.

December 5: John George Hollway marries Sophia Burchell.

As a side note: the Hollways ended up having a bunch of kids, I think at least five. The Barnards had none, nor did Charlotte ever experience a miscarriage — at least according to Muriel Cary-Barnard, one of Charles’s six total children with his second wife Alice. Ultimately, the Barnards were married for about 14 and a half years before Charlotte’s death. Interesting, innit. Something to consider.

1857

The Barnards move from Louth to London sometime this spring, taking up residence at 6 Eccleston Square.

At some point this year, Charlotte writes a poem that’s titled only with its incipit (which will be a common thing here).

[Have I not loved thee?]

Tell me not, dearest, that we must part;
Have I not loved thee? ask of thy heart.
And now in anger thou bid'st me depart;
Have I not loved thee? ask of thy heart.

And though no longer that heart be mine,
Bid me not leave thee lonely to pine.
Can I forget thee, so dear as thou art!
Have I not loved thee? ask of thy heart.

1858

Charlotte publishes her first song — under her real name, or at least that of “Mrs. Charles Cary Barnard.” It's a vocal duet, a musical setting of Tennyson’s poem “The Blackbird,” dedicated to her first cousins Janie and (also) Charlotte Elmhirst. (If they’re related to her ex-fiancé Charles Elmhirst, it’s quite distantly.)

1859

Charlotte publishes her first crop of songs under the “Claribel” sobriquet, including “Janet’s Choice,” which would become her first genuine hit.

1860

Charlotte gets the attention of another Charlotte – this one Sainton-Dolby, a far-famed contralto. Sainton-Dolby says in a letter that would like to “buy” Claribel’s song “Janet’s Choice” as a “royalty ballad.” The exact mechanics of the royalty system are a topic I’ve touched on in previous newsletters, but essentially Other Charlotte wanted to make it one of her signature songs that she sang at a bunch of concerts and stuff. Thus begins a friendship and creative partnership that would last until Claribel’s death.

Also this year, Charlotte writes what is to my knowledge her only vocal-trio song, for the ladies of Madame Sainton-Dolby's singing class (which she was also in, as confirmed by her cousin Amy Robinson in an 1862 letter). Here are the song’s lyrics.

Mary, I Will Wait for Thee

When the quiet moon is rising
By the ever-sounding sea,
While the golden stars are shining,
Mary, I will wait for thee.

When the folded flowers are sleeping,
Silent every bird and bee,
While the evening dews are weeping,
Mary, I will wait for thee.

When the light shines from the lattice,
Then I know thou'lt come to me;
And my heart beats high and gladly,
Mary, as I wait for thee.

Wherefore tarry, wherefore linger,
While I sigh so wearily?
Is not this our trysting hour?
Mary, come, I wait for thee!

1861

May: The most important gay thing to happen this whole year is whatever incident inspired Charlotte’s most indisputably sapphic poem, “Down the Stream”:

Down the Stream

Down the river we went rowing,
When the trees were white with May,
Where forget-me-nots were growing,
Making glad the river's way.
Bent the reeds and rocked the rushes,
As the wavelets fled to shore;
Blackbirds sang in hawthorn bushes,
Swallows skimmed the river o'er.
Gliding past the scented meadows,
All was pleasant as a dream;
Faintly fell the aspen shadows,
As we floated down the stream.

Gliding by the waving rushes,
Silence had been wise and well,
But the birds and hawthorn bushes
All seemed urging me to tell.
So 'twas whispered on the river,
And I blessed its silver flow,
For her lips' uncertain quiver
Told me all I craved to know.
And when I had told my story,
Came enchantment's golden gleam,
Bathing all around in glory
As we floated down the stream.

Ah! methinks, thou merry May-time,
I shall trust thee ne'er again,
For it seems that in thy play-time
Thou may'st break a heart in twain.
Cruel flowers and thrushes feathered!
Long ago that vision fled;
Seven times now the thorns have withered
Since those foolish words were said.
And I sometimes hate the river,
When I see its silver gleam,
For its waters brought me never
What was promised on its stream.

Notice the female pronoun!!!

When I first spotted this, I was frantically trying to be a fair literary critic and find other potential interpretations, so I went back and forth for a hot minute about whether Charlotte was gendering the river with that pronoun. But then my partner pointed out that Charlotte had literally just referred to the river with “its” in the previous line. So like, The Narrator Who May Very Well Just Be Charlotte was absolutely on this lil love boat with a woman.

Phyllis was unsure at one point whether this poem (or maybe the inciting incident, can't quite tell) dated to 1858 or 1861. However, elsewhere in her papers is a typed-up copy of some notes that Charles Cary Barnard made about several of Charlotte’s poems… including “Down the Stream.” According to him, it was written at Maidenhead on May 22, 1868. Since there's that allusion to “seven times the thorns have withered” between the inciting incident and the poem's penning, assuming that's an accurate number, that would put the original encounter in 1861.

Some folks who’ve written about Claribel assume she never got over John George Hollway, after their breakup in 1852. Derek Scott’s article on her for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians devotes a rather large chunk, proportionally speaking, of its limited space to this exact conjecture — but to be absolutely fair to Scott, Phyllis (and by extension Margaret Godsmark and Dorothy Owen, the other two women who helped bring The Story of Claribel to press) trafficked in that same assumption, often sounding downright fanciful about it. For my part, though, I don’t think the timing of this poem lines up at all with it being about John, to say nothing of the pronouns.

There's one other poem Phyllis dates to this year, though with no month or day. I don't know if it's supposed to be a sequel or companion to the previous year’s vocal trio, but it doesn't not make sense in that hypothetical context.

[Oh, Mary! I must sail to-night]

Оh, Mary! I must sail to-night,
At sunset, o'er the sea;
Say, when I'm gone, my only love,
Wilt thou remember me?

I know that many a worthier one
May tell his love to thee;
But oh! my love, my only love,
Wilt thou remember me?

And when the moon sends forth her rays
Of silver o'er the sea,
Oh, Mary! wilt thou watch her beams,
And still remember me?

And when the stars come one by one,
So bright and fair to see,
Oh! then, my love, my only love,
Wilt thou remember me?

I’ll wrap it here for the moment, so I can actually make myself send out a newsletter installment for a change. Look for part 2 next week, though, and I really mean that this time! Until then, mes chers, happy queer history month ❤️