PHIL SILVA
Educator, researcher
Phil Silva personally raised plenty of children of his own, but it was the 1037 other children he "raised" — the original cohort in what is now known worldwide as the Dunedin Study — who will be his professional legacy.
A psychologist, educator and researcher, Dr Silva initiated what has grown to be one of the most significant pieces of academic work ever undertaken by the University of Otago.
From its humble origins, what is formally known as the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study has informed the work of generations of New Zealand academics and developed a dataset frequently used by scientists the world over.
Dr Silva’s humble origins belied the great heights he would later reach. Philip Anthony Silva was born in 1940, the son of Herbert Silva, a metallurgist who spent World War 2 manufacturing explosives, and Ella Angermunde, a shop assistant. His parents separated when he was just 3 years old and he was dispatched to Dunedin as a boarder to John McGlashan College.
He ended up living with each of his parents for a time. Initially that was in Cromwell with his father, attending the local school. Times were tough: Dr Silva later remembered those as years of poverty when wild rabbit was often, by necessity, the only dinner available.
When he was 9 he moved back to Dunedin to live with his mother and stepfather, Doug Shirley (a war hero and later the Dunedin town clerk). He went to Arthur Street School and Otago Boys’ High School (1954-58), before going on to the Dunedin Teachers College.
Despite a rebellious streak and a penchant for finding himself in trouble he reached the highest rank, regimental sergeant major, in the OBHS cadets. He was also an Otago badminton champ and a provincial-level tennis player.
In 1961 he obtained his trainee teacher’s certificate and also married fellow student Wendy Crane, whom he had met at college.
He passed his diploma of teaching in 1964 and from 1961-68 he worked as a primary teacher, in both urban and rural schools. What Dr Silva learned about the educational and developmental challenges faced by his young charges informed his later research work.
He received a scholarship and went back to school himself, graduating with a BA in education from the University of Otago in 1967. He was then awarded a fellowship to complete his master of arts in education, a qualification he earned with honours.
Dr Silva soon realised that he needed a larger sample size; happily there were already building blocks in place for this more ambitious piece of work. Dr Buckfield’s main interest was the impact of new birthing interventions on child development, and she had already gathered data on the 12,000 babies born at Dunedin’s Queen Mary obstetric hospital between 1967 and 1973.
Dr Silva approached the parents of those children born in a one-year period from April 1, 1972, to March 31 the following year, and whose mothers still lived in Dunedin, and asked if they would mind bringing their children in for a health and development assessment.
Of those parents, 91% agreed to help, and brought their toddlers in for half a day of tests and measurements. There were 535 boys and 502 girls, comprising 1013 single births and 12 sets of twins; it soon became apparent that an unparalleled research opportunity was staring the academics in the face.
A year into working with Dr Silva, Dr Buckfield called a meeting to discuss the possibility of carrying on research into the rest of the children’s growing years.
Dr Silva was keen to do so, paving the way for what ultimately would become the Dunedin Study.
Among the study participants was Tim Silva, one of six children he and Wendy had, who had in a pleasing coincidence been born during the study’s founding year. Wendy died in 1998.
In its early days, with few people realising what it could or would become, the Dunedin Study survived on the smell of an oily rag and largely thanks to community help and donations.
"Nobody then involved would have guessed that the children would be followed into adulthood," Dr Silva recalled.
Volunteers found the children, carried out the interviews and did some of the tests. Dr Silva, as well as driving the process, was also forced into action as maintenance man, repairing the former Presbyterian manse and Sunday school halls at Knox Church, which were the study’s original base.
In 1978 Dr Silva’s dissertation, Some Neurological and Psychological Characteristics of Children Who Were Preterm and Small for Gestational Age: A Multidisciplinary Study — based on his Dunedin Study research — was accepted.
It was one of the first of an estimated more than 1400 studies and reports, many by overseas academics, which have been based on data provided by the Dunedin Study. It has gone on to win every major New Zealand science award, and in 1993 the study featured on the cover of Time magazine.
A year later Dr Silva was honoured with the Order of the British Empire, an award he was quick to dedicate to all involved with the study.
Dr Silva knew that the study would reap no quick rewards and that its work would be laborious, but that eventually no-one would be able to argue about its rich harvest of facts.
Dr Silva was a visionary leader and, as befitted a man who never did anything by halves, he threw his heart and soul into running the Dunedin Study and preserved its work from sceptics and budget cutters.
From his life-long love of the great outdoors Dr Silva had a well-developed sense of adventure — he often told his children a holiday wasn’t a holiday without a bit of terror every day. That trait served the avid sailor well as Dr Silva took the formative study into uncharted waters.
Long before the phrase was invented, the Dunedin Study was a multi-disciplinary project — Dr Silva instinctively knew that its findings would be of benefit in many fields other than his own. He took quiet satisfaction that a great deal of government public policy was driven by what the study had revealed about growth, development and ageing.
The children have now been assessed at ages 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 32, 38, 45 and 52 — an astonishing 94% of the original participants are still part of the study. Dr Silva was intelligent and caring, and study participants who might have lost interest were won over by Dr Phil’s charisma, enthusiasm and and determination.
A firm fan of the underdog, he looked out for and looked after study participants, often calling upon his masterful problem-solving skills to offer them help.
Dr Silva was director of the Dunedin Study until his retirement in 1999, although he continued to be associated with it in an emeritus role.
His successor, Prof Richie Poulton, ran the study for a further 23 years: he died in 2023.
Dr Silva maintained close ties with the study and when current director Moana Theodore — whom he had hired as an interviewer many years before — called to ask for his blessing to take on his old job he instantly said yes. Then he got straight down to business, asking what was going on with various aspects of its work.
Although the Dunedin Study was Dr Silva’s life’s work, it was not all-consuming. He was father to Nikki, Jeremy, Penny and Tim: Anthony died after a few brief days of life, while Nathan died in 1999.
Dr Silva married his second wife, Anne Wilkinson, in Dunedin in 1998. They later separated.
Dr Silva, who had a twinkle in his eye and wise advice on all matters, was a leader in many communities. Happy to sit on school boards during his offspring’s childhoods, he was also an elder in the Roslyn Presbyterian Church.
He served on the board of the Hearing Health Foundation for more than 50 years, and was also deeply involved with D.A.R.E — Drug, Abuse, Resistance and Education.
He was national president for three years and established a research evaluation programme inquiring into adolescent drug abuse. The programme, since revamped and relaunched, still runs today.
Dr Silva also served as a professor at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and at Auckland University of Technology, where he helped establish the Pacific Island Families Study.
Dr Silva finally retired from full-time academic life in 2005, although he continued to write books and articles.
A life-long boatie — which included owning a vessel which lost a propeller off the Otago coast when he was meant to be at his mother’s 80th birthday party, an event he made it to just in time — Dr Silva moved to Nelson and lived aboard a 50ft launch, Monterrey.
The lifestyle suited an avid fisherman — although Dr Silva was never an enthusiastic fish eater. However, the draw of being involved remained strong, and Dr Silva soon found himself commodore of the Tasman Bay Cruising Club.
While in Nelson Dr Silva, who had been dabbling with dating sites, found the profile of Suzanne Shand. After many long phone calls she flew to Nelson to meet Dr Silva, and ended up staying for several days.
Dr Silva sold Monterrey and moved to Christchurch to be with Suzanne. The couple married in 2016: broadcaster Dougal Stevenson, a childhood friend, was MC at the wedding.
Dr Silva relished the rich social life he enjoyed with Suzanne, including regular movies and entertaining friends and family. He was also warmly welcomed and respected by Suzanne’s children.
Phil Silva died in Christchurch on June 12, aged 84. He is survived by Suzanne, children Nikki, Jeremy, Penny and Tim, 12 grandchildren, his great-grandchildren and the many participants of the Dunedin Study. — Mike Houlahan
