Frances Mary Richardson Currer (3 March 1785 – 28 April 1861) was a British heiress and book collector.

This was a condition of a substantial inheritance from Sarah Currer, the grand daughter of Matthew Wilson who had built Eshton Hall.

[1][2][3][4] The Bierley estate she had inherited was the site of mining operations under a lease for mineral rights, for 46 years, granted by Currer in 1800, to Henry Leah.

[1] Currer donated money to the Clergy Daughter's School in Lancashire that the Brontë sisters attended in 1824–5, and funded the local mechanics institute.

[1] It has been speculated that her philanthropy was the reason that Charlotte Brontë chose the nom de plume of "Currer Bell" for her 1847 novel Jane Eyre.