Further Reading on Claribel
There's not much academic literature in existence on Claribel specifically; what I have been able to find is listed below.
The Story of Claribel (Charlotte Alington Barnard) by Phyllis Smith and Margaret Godsmark
Find it near you on WorldCat
This is quite literally the only book on Claribel in existence. The book covers Claribel's family history before her birth, including quite a lot on her father Henry Alington Pye’s background, and gives an overview of her hometown of Louth, Lincolnshire in general before moving on to her adult life and narrating her musical career. The authors had access to a wealth of primary sources from Claribel and her family members, and they include letters to and from Claribel herself in their rendition of her story. The prose leaves something to be desired in terms of citations, though, and the authors often get overly narrative on occasion, projecting possible thoughts onto Claribel. Until someone writes a book with more scholarly rigor, though, this will be the best biographical source on Claribel.
"A Tale of Two Charlottes: Historical British Women Song Composers" by Joyce Andrews; IAWM Journal Vol. 18 No. 2, pages 6-11
Find the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music near you on WorldCat
ACCESS NOTE: This article is difficult to acquire; I had to get a scan through interlibrary loan. However, the above link will show you which libraries near you have print runs of the journal, and you can request the specific issue and page numbers listed above.
Joyce Andrews takes the unique approach of analyzing Claribel's music career in conjunction with that of her frequent collaborator, Charlotte Sainton-Dolby. The ways in which these two women supported each other's careers are striking, and it also serves as a nice counterpoint to Smith and Godsmark's extensive focus on Claribel's father.
Chapter 3, "The Rise of the Woman Ballad Composer," in The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour by Derek B. Scott
Read the chapter here
The Singing Bourgeois as a whole is a valuable book on this subject for the attention it pays to the domestic spheres for which Claribel mostly wrote. However, Derek B. Scott is also one of a scant few academics to write about Claribel specifically, which is why this chapter of the book is highlighted here. Scott devotes relatively little time in this chapter to the business aspects of Claribel's career and none to her reception in the press, instead focusing more on the music theory behind her compositions.
Bonus resource: "Claribel, Charlotte Alington Barnard" by Gill Chatfield, a blog post published via the Louth Museum
Read the post here
The museum in Claribel's hometown of Louth has some holdings on her, certainly more than they put on display at any given time. This blog post, perhaps written by a volunteer, is still one of the only readily available resources on Claribel. It should be taken with a grain of salt, though, because specific sources aren't cited.