Sculptor, ceramist and teacher, born in East Grinstead, Sussex. She attended Goldsmiths’ College of Art, 1950–3, in 1972 establishing her own pottery studio, from 1973–86 being head of ceramics at Westminster School. In the latter year she turned from ceramics and became a successful sculptor. Among her commissions was a large outdoor piece for Keele University and the portrait head of Dr Geoffrey Spencer, founder of the Lane Fox Unit at St Thomas’s Hospital. Like Whelan, he and his children were educated at Bedales School. Diana’s bronze of him was illustrated in the publication accompanying the exhibition Bedales Art & Design, organised by William Jackson Gallery at Art99, in 1999, at the Business Design Centre. By then, Whelan was an associate of the RBS.