Amy Johnson was born at 154 St. George's Road in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest of the four daughters of John william Johnson, a member of the family fish merchants firm of Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company, and Amy Hodge, granddaughter of william Hodge, Mayor of Hull in 1860. Johnson was educated at Boulevard Municipal Secondary School (later Kingston High School) and the University of Sheffield, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. She then worked in London as secretary to a solicitor, william Charles Crocker. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining an aviator's certificate, No. 8662, on 28 June 1929, and a pilot's "A" Licence, No. 1979, on 6 July 1929, both at the London Aeroplane Club under the tutelage of Captain Valentine Baker. In that same year, she became the first British woman to obtain a ground engineer's "C" licence.