Her great-grandfather served as Hull's mayor

Amy Johnson was born in 1903 in Hull, East Yorkshire. When traveling to Hull, her father, a Danish fish broker, met her mother, a Yorkshire lady named Amy Hodge. Her parents were Amy Hodge and John William Johnson, both of the fish merchants Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company. Amy was the great-granddaughter of William Hodge, the late 1800s mayor of Hull, which is one of the interesting facts about Amy Johnson. She was the oldest of three sisters.

She was always highly competitive, liked playing games with males, and had a strong sense of adventure. She was hit by a cricket ball when she was 14 and lost her two front teeth. She recounts becoming more reclusive as a result, and how she "withdrew more and farther into a protective shell of my construction." Amy Johnson went to Kingston's Boulevard Municipal Secondary School before transferring to South Yorkshire's University of Sheffield. She studied Economics there and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1923.