Miss Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861), one of the first female book collectors in Europe, scholar, acquaintance of Charlotte Bronte (and possibly the inspiration for Charlotte Bronte's pen name).

The name Bell may have been chosen by the arrival that summer of their father's new curate, Arthur Bell Nichols. While a governess at the Sidgwicks, Charlotte had certainly heard much of their neighbour, Miss Frances Mary Richardson Currer, of Eshton Hall, Skipton, whose property touched Stonegappe, and whose library was famous throughout the north. She was one of the founder patrons of the Clergy Daughters' School, so that her name must have been doubly familiar to Charlotte. The poetess Eliza Acton (1777-1859) [theDictionary of National Biography gives Acton's birth year as 1799], who had considerable success in her day and was patronized [246/247] by royalty, may have suggested Anne's pseudonym to her. There appears to be no clue to the origin of Emily's choice of name, Ellis. 
It is not impossible that Charlotte herself had access to Miss Currer's books at some point. An avid reader from childhood, the latter had inherited a fine library, kept adding to it, and ensured that her books were expertly catalogued. (See Dictionary of National Biography, XIII, 340). The second catalogue, compiled by C.J. Stewart, was privately printed (100 copies) in 1833 and is a treasure-trove for anyone interested in the reading habits of the educated pre- and early-Victorian upper class. While Miss Currer's collection featured many respectable works of natural science, she was sufficiently interested in the pseudo-scientific fashions of her day to acquire a copy of the Physiognomical System of Drs Gall and Spurzheim. The doctors were pioneers of phrenology, a school of thought whose influence on Charlotte [247/248] and Anne is patent in their novels.³ Another of the interests that Miss Currer shared with the Brontës was mental improvement, and she owned educational works by like-minded women such as Mrs Hester Chapone and Maria Edgeworth.

The fact that F.M.R. Currer supported the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge suggests that she was one of those 'wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county' (Jane Eyre's description of the subscribers to a new and improved Lowood Institute (opening of Chapter 10). Charlotte is not likely to have blamed a founder patron for subsequent misfortunes at the institution.) whose munificence ensured the survival of charitable institutions. Her character (she was 'extremely accomplished and amiable', according to the DNB biographer) seems to have been as irreproachable as her scholarship; in 1836, the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin placed her 'at THE HEAD of all female Collectors in Europe', calling her 'a sort of modern CHRISTINA of the North' (p. 949). Read more:Victorianweb