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<\/p>\nMatthew Lamb felt it needed to be \u2018preserved and shared\u2019<\/p>\n
13:34, 10 Sep 2026<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0_hum-100926-drone-amy.jpg\")
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The rare photograph showing Amy Johnson training with flying instructor Captain Valentine Baker(Image: UndercoverDrone)<\/p>\n
A photographer from Hull who unearthed a previously unreleased photograph of Amy Johnson has spoken about his excitement at the find. Matthew Lamb, co-founder of local photography page, UndercoverDrone, said he bought the picture when it came from a local collection that had been sold on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI immediately thought it was worth further research, which eventually led to the discovery of its significance,\u201d said Matthew. \u201cDr David Marchant, museums and archives manager from East Riding Council<\/a>, helped verify that it’s a rare, pre-1930 look at Amy Johnson<\/a> before she even had her licence.\u201d<\/p>\n Matthew said he believed the rare, standalone vintage photograph had never been seen by the public before. The photo captures a young Amy smiling from the cockpit of a de Havilland Moth<\/a> biplane at Stag Lane Aerodrome, alongside her flying instructor, Captain Valentine Baker.<\/p>\n The training took place between September 1928 and July 1929, right before Amy\u2019s history-making solo flight to Australia. \u201cUnlike the standard archival press images from that day, this is a completely unique photograph taken from an independent, unpublished angle,\u201d said Matthew.<\/p>\n \u201cI have already digitally scanned and physically authenticated the print\u2014the reverse side features the period-correct, 1929-era oval \u2018Velox\u2019 backing stamp and original darkroom negative numbers. As a local photographer, it\u2019s incredibly exciting to bring a new piece of Amy Johnson\u2019s history back to her home town.\u201d<\/p>\n Matthew posted the photo on UndercoverDrone but hoped to cast an even wider net to get it in front of more eyes. \u201cFinding an artefact with this level of local historical significance felt incredibly surreal.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you hold a piece of history like that, you immediately realise it is something that needs to be preserved and shared, rather than hidden away. It is a rare privilege to come across something so unique, and it definitely brings a strong sense of responsibility to ensure its story is told correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n A post about the find on UndercoverDrone<\/a> said: \u201cHere is our rare, completely unseen photograph of Hull\u2019s legendary aviation pioneer, often called the \u2018Queen of the Air\u2019, Amy Johnson! This incredible shot captures Amy during her very first months of flying lessons at the famous Stag Lane Aerodrome in late 1928 \/ early 1929.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is pictured sitting in a Cirrus II Moth alongside her tutor, the iconic flying instructor Captain Valentine Baker. At this exact moment in time, Amy was a young secretary who had moved to London.<\/p>\n \u201cShe wrote in the spring of 1928, \u2018I’m going to learn flying! I’m joining the London Aeroplane Club, and then I can get tuition and always use their aeroplanes.\u2019 By 13th October 1928, she had completed six lessons.<\/p>\n Of Amy’s first ten lessons, five were with Baker and five with Captain Matthews, the junior instructor. Spending an hour a week at Stag Lane and the rest of her time in the office (her salary was \u00a35 a week), she worked towards her ‘A’ licence, completely unaware that she would soon become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in 1930.<\/p>\n \u201cHer instructor, Valentine Baker, was one of the most respected pilots of the era. A decorated First World War hero who flew with the RFC, RNAS, and RAF, he later went on to co-found the world-famous Martin-Baker Aircraft Company, revolutionising pilot safety (he sadly died during a prototype test flight for the company in 1942.) They went on to invent the ejection seat and still manufacture them to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n The post continued: \u201cTo do justice to this piece of history, a high-resolution, archival digital scan was produced and sourced directly from the original vintage Kodak Velox photo paper preserved within our private collection. A copy of this high-res digital scan has been officially shared with the Amy Johnson Collection at Sewerby Hall so they can preserve it and credit it in their future museum displays.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause Amy herself famously opened Sewerby Hall to the public back in 1936, it felt only right to gift a copy of this training photo to their permanent archive.\u201d<\/p>\n Matthew has been running UndercoverDrone with his co-founder, Ryan, since 2023. He said: \u201cMoving forward, our main hope for the page is to expand our aerial drone photography and videography to showcase our region, while continuing to capture local interest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really want to use modern drone technology and ground cameras to show off the beauty and history of our region across Hull and East Yorkshire, documenting both current projects and historical sites from angles people rarely get to see. Our roots here run incredibly deep – I grew up in East Yorkshire and Ryan is Hull born and bred.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing so deeply tied to the community is exactly what drives our work at UndercoverDrone. Finding a historical photograph like this feels deeply personal because it directly connects to the heritage of the places we have known and loved our entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Did you know you can make Hull Live a preferred source of Hull news in Google, which will mean you get more of our breaking news, exclusives, and must-read stories straight away? Here’s more information<\/a> about what this means and how to do it – you can also do it straight away by clicking here<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Lamb felt it needed to be \u2018preserved and shared\u2019 13:34, 10 Sep 2026 The rare photograph showing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,10748,2802,8934,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-766976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-museums","tag-nostalgia","tag-premium","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}