Yom Kippur Ball, invented 15th of September, 1888 at the Berner Street Club

[seanr]

I think the best evidence for Joseph Silver being in London in 1888 was the birth of his daughter, Bertha Lis. Van Onselen also links Lewis Lis a General Dealer on Plumber's Row to the family, by the rarity of the surname, but it's not definitive. There's also a Marks Levy who was studied by another South African historian, which Van Onselem thinks Silver may have frequented the gambling den this Levy was ran in Aldgate during the 1880s, but that doesn't check out. Marks Levy's 'gambling den' wasn't open in the 1880s, it was a little later.

So the details are sketchy and indeterminate. Joseph Silver would have been 18/ 19 in 1888, so on the younger side. He certainly appears to have been up to his eyeballs in criminal conspiracy and misogyny throughout his life. Who knows what his associates were like!