June Howqua was born in Melbourne on 4 June, 1921. Her father was Albert Henry Howqua, a public servant, and her mother Lillie Eileen (nee Currie.) Her great grand father had been one of the earliest settlers in the Howqua valley in Victoria. June possessed a naturalisation certificate for one of her ancestors with the name How Qua.

She attended Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School and graduated MBBS from Melbourne University in 1944 with honours in all subjects. She was RMO at Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) and then at Royal Childrens Hospital and registrar at RMH. She then went to London and worked at the Central Middlesex Hospital and the Brompton Hospital. She returned to Melbourne to physician appointments at RMH and Queen Victoria Hospitals (QVH) and continued at QVH as a consultant physician for the next 30 years until 1986.

She was awarded MD (Melbourne) in 1947 and later Fellowship of the RCP and RACP. She was Pfizer Fellow in Clinical Medicine, RACP in 1966.

June was vice president of the Board of Management at QVH from 1979 to 1983 and a longstanding member of the Standing Committee of Ethics in Human Experimentation and IVF. She was President of the Honorary Medical Staff at QVH in 1961 and in 1966 and a Trustee of the Victorian Cytology Service. She was an associate in the Faculty of Medicine, Monash University.

She was a consultant physician in private practice in East Melbourne with special interests in cardiology and pulmonary medicine.

June had a keen incisive brain and tolerated fools poorly. She more than held her own intellectually and on a personal level in a very male-orientated profession.

Ahead of her time, she ran successful and much appreciated courses for married women doctors who wished to return to work after having their families.

She was a volunteer with the Brotherhood of St Laurence. She never married and listed her hobbies as literature, theatre, gardening, farming and classical studies.