Author. Lady Diana Belcher received noted acclaim for writing in 1870 "The Mutineers of the Bounty and their Descendants in Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands," in which she exonerated her step-father Peter Heywood for his part in the April 28, 1789 mutiny. Her widowed mother, Frances Simpson Jolliffe, became Heywood's wife after his naval retirement. Before Heywood's 1831 death, he gave his copy of James Morrison's journal to Lady Diana. Morrison had served with Heywood on the HMS Bounty. The document remained in the Heywood family until 1915, when the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, a family friend, bequested it to the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia to be preserved. In 2010, the entire journal was edited by Donald Maxton and published as "After the Bounty: A Sailor's Account of the Mutiny, and Life in the South Seas." Lady Diana married Sir Edward Belcher on September 11, 1830, and including at least an one-year voyage, they remained married for three years before they separated. June of 1835, the Cathedral Church of St. Paul issued a judgment against Belcher in the charge of adultery brought by Lady Diana. Belcher was a surveyor who had sailed in 1825 with Captain Fredrick William Bleechey on a 4-year expedition on the HMS Blossom in the Pacific and Alaskan coastline. Later, the voyage took them to the Pitcairn Island where the surviving mutineers of the HMS Bounty lived. Belcher personally interviewed the last remaining survivor of the Bounty, John Smith. Smith recalled that Heywood was a tattooed sixteen-year-old who was not below deck but on deck and could have gone with Captain Bligh. There were two different stories in Heywood's role with Bligh and the mutiny on HMS Bounty; thus, he was captured as a mutineer, court-martial, condemned to death by hanging, pardoned by King George III on the same day as Morrison, and years later retired from the Royal Navy with 29 years of honorable service but never promoted beyond the rank of post-captain. Belcher did not support Heywood's story as Lady Diana hoped; she never remarried but took the title "Lady" after Belcher was knighted at the end of his naval career. Like Bligh, Belcher had numerous complaints from his crew members of being abusive during the many voyages he made. At one point, he was not allow to command a ship because of these complaints. Besides Lady Diana's book, there was "Mutiny on the Bounty" written by Charles Norford and James Hall in 1932, a movie in 1933 introducing Errol Flynn, the Oscar-winning film "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in 1935 and remakes in 1962 and 1984. Recently, in 1998 Caroline Alexander published her "The Bounty: The True Story of Mutiny on the Bounty." All referenced Lady Diana's 396-paged 1870 book for details.
She divorced Edward after a short marriage with no progeny.