June Swann

{{Short description|British footwear historian}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}

{{Use British English|date=October 2016}}

{{Infobox person

| name = June Swann

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1929}}

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| occupation = Footwear historian

| awards = Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

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June Marion Swann MBE (born 1929) is a British footwear historian, formerly the Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England, where she worked for 38 years from 1950 to 1988. In the late 1950s she inaugurated the study of shoes hidden in buildings as charms, starting a collection of found shoes and the Hidden Shoe Index at the Northampton Museum.{{Cite web |last=Scrivener |first=Leslie |date=June 22, 2008 |title=Mystery of the shoe in the wall |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/mystery-of-the-shoe-in-the-wall/article_41218562-c479-55e9-89c0-a2faf2b75429.html |access-date=May 20, 2024 |website=Toronto Star}}{{Cite web |last=Prickett |first=Katy |date=Dec 9, 2017 |title=The shoes hidden in homes to ward off evil |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-41507752 |access-date=May 20, 2024 |website=BBC News}} Swann has been called "the world's leading authority on historic shoes."{{Cite journal|last=Shawcross|first=Rebecca|date=March 2019|title=Miss June Swann: An Appreciation|url=https://www.euppublishing.com/toc/cost/53/1|journal=Costume|volume=53|issue=1|pages=3–10|doi=10.3366/cost.2019.0091|s2cid=192489020|url-access=subscription}}{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/you-are-what-you-wear-on-your-feet-for-june-swann-a-boot-is-a-clue-to-personality-as-well-as-social-history-paula-weideger-talked-to-her-1542212.html |title=You are what you wear on your feet: For June Swann, a boot is a clue to personality as well as social history. Paula Weideger talked to her |newspaper=The Independent |date=24 August 1992 |access-date=2 February 2015 |author=Weideger, Paula |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402220530/http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/you-are-what-you-wear-on-your-feet-for-june-swann-a-boot-is-a-clue-to-personality-as-well-as-social-history-paula-weideger-talked-to-her-1542212.html |archive-date= 2 April 2015 }} () She is engaged by museums around the world to identify shoes in their collections.{{cite magazine |author=Newman, Cathy |date=September 2006 |title=The Joy of Shoes: Man's Shoe |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0609/feature2/online_extra06.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140818163320/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0609/feature2/online_extra06.html |archive-date=18 August 2014 |access-date=2 February 2015 |magazine=National Geographic}} ()

Swann graduated with a degree in geography in 1949, and began to work at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery the following year. The town was a historical center for the production of shoes, and she took charge of curating the museum's collection of shoes and related artefacts, the world's largest collection of historical footwear. She became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1976, for her work at Northampton Museum.[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/46919/supplement/8031/data.pdf London Gazette], 12 June 1976

She was a founder member of The Costume Society, and its chairman from 1980 to 1987.{{Cite web |url=http://costumesociety.org.uk/about/our-history |title=Our history |website=The Costume Society |access-date=2019-07-21}}

She retired in 1988 and became a freelance consultant. After retirement she travelled to Sydney to catalogue the Joseph Box Collection at the Powerhouse Museum.Louise Mitchell and Lindie Ward, Stepping Out: Three Centuries of Shoes (Ashgate, 2008), p. 12. She also assisted with the cataloguing of the Cordwainers College Historical Shoe Collection, from 1992 to 2000.[http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/LCFSHOE.html Cordwainers College Historic Shoe Collection], VADS.ac.uk