s Bronze Bust of Amy Johnson by Siegfried Joseph Charoux (c.1944) - Hull Museums Collections

Bronze Bust of Amy Johnson by Siegfried Joseph Charoux (c.1944)

This is a bronze bust of Amy Johnson. Amy was a famous pilot who was born in Hull. She was famous for flying alone from England to Australia. Amy was the first woman ever to do this and broke many world records. When Amy left England on her round the world flight not many people had heard of her. She flew 10,000 miles through sandstorms, monsoons and extreme temperatures. When she arrived in Australia she had become world famous. Amy Johnson was born in 1903 at 154 St.George’s Road in Hull. She studied at Sheffield University and later became an air pioneer. She is most famous for her lone flight from Croydon, England to Port Darwin, Australia (5th May – 24th May 1930). She was only 26 years old when she did this. The Australia flight was done in her Gypsy Moth aeroplane called The Jason. As part of this journey, Johnson took the record time for England to India and then flying to Australia. She was the first woman to accomplish both feats. Amy served with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in the Second World War. She went missing while flying a mission over the Thames Estuary in 1941. This bust was commissioned by the Women’s Engineering Society to commemorate Amy Johnson. It was presented to the Ferens Art Gallery in 1945. Siegfried Joseph Charoux was the sculptor of this bust. He was born in Austria and worked in Vienna as a political cartoonist. In 1935 Charoux had to leave for England as a political refugee from the Nazis.