Amy Johnson 1903 - 1941

Amy Johnson was a British aviator and engineer, born in Hull on 1st July 1903. After attending Sheffield University and while working at a London solicitors' firm, she joined the London Aeroplane Club at Stag Lane, Edgware to learn to fly. She received her pilot's 'A' licence in July 1929. Her ground engineer's 'C' licence followed in December 1929; she was the first British woman to achieve this. She was elected a member of the Women's Engineering Society in 1930 as a result.

In 1930, after just one hundred hours of solo flying, Johnson departed from Croydon Airport in her De Havilland Gipsy Moth called Jason, intending to set a new speed record from England to Australia. She was beset by poor weather and mechanical problems and arrived in Port Darwin nineteen and a half days later. She had not broken the speed record but was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia. She continued to break records and compete in races, flying from Britain to Japan in record time in 1931 with co-pilot Jack Humphreys. In 1932, she set a new world record for the fastest solo flight from Britain to Cape Town, South Africa, beating her new husband Jim Mollison's record. Johnson also attempted record-breaking flights with Mollison until their divorce in 1938.

At the start of the Second World War, like many pilots ineligible to join the RAF because of gender, age or disability, Johnson wanted to use her flying skills to support the war effort. She became a pilot for the Air Transport Auxiliary in May 1940, ferrying a variety of aircraft with little instruction and no radio to free up Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots for combat duty. On 5th January 1941 she took off in thick fog from Prestwick via Blackpool to ferry an Airspeed Oxford to RAF Kidlington near Oxford. It is believed she lost her way due to poor weather and, reportedly running out of fuel, was forced to abandon her aircraft and bail out over the Thames Estuary. Her body was never recovered.