Amy Johnson CBE was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia.

Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records during the 1930s. In 1933, Katharine Hepburn's character in the film Christopher Strong was inspired by Johnson. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary: she died after bailing out. Because her body was never recovered, the precise cause of her death—drowning, hypothermia or being pulled into a warship's moving propellers, is unknown and has been a subject of discussion since the possibility of friendly fire was raised in 1999 (see below).

Born in 1903 in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, Amy Johnson was the daughter of Amy Hodge, granddaughter of William Hodge, a Mayor of Hull, and John William Johnson whose family were fish merchants in the firm of Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company. She was the eldest of three sisters, the next in age being Irene who was a year younger