Amy Johnson - Honours and Tributes

Honours and Tributes

During her life, Johnson was recognised in many ways. In June 1930, Johnson's flight to Australia was the subject of a contemporary popular song, "Amy, Wonderful Amy", composed by Horatio Nicholls and recorded by Harry Bidgood, Jack Hylton, Arthur Lally, Arthur Rosebery and Debroy Somers. She was also the guest of honour at the opening of the first Butlins holiday camp, in Skegness in 1936. From 1935 to 1937, Johnson was the President of the Women's Engineering Society.

A collection of Amy Johnson souvenirs and mementos was donated by her father to Sewerby Hall in 1958. The hall now houses a room dedicated to Amy Johnson in its museum. In 1974, Harry Ibbetson's statue of Amy Johnson was unveiled in Prospect Street, Hull where a girls' school was named after her (the school later closed in 2004). A blue plaque commemorates Johnson at Vernon Court, Hendon Way, in Cricklewood, London.

Public edifices to Johnson's honour includes the "Amy Johnson Building" housing the department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield is named after her. The "Amy Johnson Primary School" situated on Mollison Drive on the Roundshaw Estate, Wallington, Surrey, is named after Johnson and built on the former runway site of Croydon Airport. Street names named in her honour include

• "Amy Johnson Avenue", a major arterial road in Darwin, Australia connecting Tiger Brennan Drive and the Stuart Highway to McMillan's Road
• "Amy Johnson Avenue" in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire
• "Amy Johnson Way", close to Blackpool Airport, in Blackpool, Lancashire
• "Amy Johnson Way" in the Rawcliffe area of York
• "Mollison Way" in Queensbury, London.
• "The Hawthornes @ Amy Johnson" in Hull, a major housing development by Keepmoat Homes on the site of the former Amy Johnson School.

Other tributes to Johnson include a KLM McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 named in her honour and "Amy's Restaurant and Bar" at the Hilton Stansted, London named after her.

In 2011 the Royal Aeronautical Society established the annual Amy Johnson Named Lecture to celebrate a century of women in flight and to honour Britain's most famous woman aviator. Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive of EasyJet, delivered the Inaugural Lecture on 6 July 2011 at the Society's headquarters in London. The Lecture is held on or close to 6 July every year to mark the date in 1929 when Amy Johnson was awarded her pilot’s licence.