Dr June Factor was born in Poland on 16 September 1936 and came to Australia as an infant. She held a BA, Dip. Ed and PhD from the University of Melbourne, and an MA from the University of London. She was an Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, and an Honorary Associate, Museums Victoria.

June was a well-known and highly respected folklorist, social historian and writer. One of her special interests was children's folklore and language. Her compilations of schoolyard rhymes, beginning with Far Out, Brussel Sprout! made her work widely known and loved among generations of Australian children.

June was recognised internationally as an expert on the play lore and language of childhood. She wrote many articles and papers on the subject, and her book Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children's Folklore in Australia, first published by Penguin in 1988, received the prestigious American Opie Award in 1989. In 2000 her book Kidspeak: A Dictionary of Australian Children's Words, Expressions and Games was published by Melbourne University Press.

During the 1970s June, together with Gwenda Davey, established the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC) at the Institute of Early Childhood Development in Melbourne, where June was Senior Lecturer in English. In 1999, June donated the Collection to Museum Victoria and in 2004 the ACFC was listed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register as the pre-eminent collection of children's folklore in Australia, and possibly the biggest in the world.

June and Gwenda were the founding co-editors of the Australian Children's Folklore Newsletter, later called Play and Folklore, which was published twice-yearly from September 1981 to December 2016, with the last 24 issues published online by Museums Victoria. June was also a founding co-editor of the International Journal of Play, first published in 2012 by Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, and was a member of the Editorial Board.

June was a foundation Board member of the Children's Museum in the Museum of Victoria, and was a specialist advisor in the planning and development of exhibitions of children's play, including You're IT! in the Children's Museum (1988-93) and Tops, Tales and Granny's False Teeth at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne (1990).

June received a Medal of the Order of Australia shortly before she passed away in Melbourne on 12 April 2024.


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