William Henry Overall (1829–1888) was an English librarian and

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

Life

The son of William Henry Overall and Rosetta Davey, he was born on 18 January 1829 at

St. John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...

. He was educated at a private school and then at the newly opened

City of London College London Guildhall University was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002, established when the City of London Polytechnic was awarded university status. On 1 August 2002, it merged with the University of North London to form Londo ...

, Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate. He entered the office of the town clerk at the

Guildhall, City of London Guildhall is a municipal building in the Moorgate area of the City of London, England. It is off Gresham and Basinghall streets, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap. The building has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is ...

in 1847, and in 1857 was appointed sub-librarian of the Guildhall Library, which then consisted of a few rooms in the front of the Guildhall. In 1865, on the death of William Turner Alchin, he received the appointment of librarian, and, on the completion of the new building in

Basinghall Street Bassishaw is a ward in the City of London. Small, it is bounded by wards: Coleman Street, east; Cheap, south; Cripplegate, north; Aldersgate, west. It first consisted of Basinghall Street with the courts and short side streets off it,

at the eastern end of the Guildhall, he superintended the move of the collections to the new building and arranged the museum. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in May 1868, and was for many years a member of the councils of the Library Association and the London and Middlesex Archæological Society. He died at

Crouch End Crouch End is an area of North London, approximately from the City of London in the western half of the borough of Haringey. It is within the Hornsey postal district (N8). It has been described by the BBC as one of "a new breed of urban villag ...

, Middlesex, after a long illness, on 28 June 1888, and was buried in St. Pancras cemetery,

Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. Finchley is on high ground, north of Charing Cross. Nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, Mill Hill and H ...

, on 3 July.

Works

In 1877 he was presented with the honorary freedom and livery of the

Clockmakers' Company The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was established under a royal charter granted by Charles I of England, King Charles I in 1631. It ranks sixty-first among the livery companies of the City of London, and comes under the jurisdiction of the ...

, of whose library and museum of clocks and watches he had prepared a printed catalogue in 1875; which was followed in 1881 by his ''History'' of the company. In conjunction with his cousin, H. C. Overall, he prepared for the corporation library committee in 1878 an ''Analytical Index to the Series of Records known as the Remembrancia preserved among the Archives of the City of London, A.D. 1579–1664'', with biographical and historical notes. This work was the outcome of an examination of the corporation records and a report on their condition. Overall also wrote catalogues of various collections in the Guildhall Library, papers on antiquarian subjects, and: * ''A Dictionary of Chronology'', 1870; * ''The Accounts of the Church-wardens of St. Michael, Cornhill, 1456–1608'', edited in 1871; * '' Civitas Londinum: a facsimile of Agas's Map of London, with an Introduction'', 1874.

Family

He was married, on 20 April 1851, to Mary Anne Elizabeth Bailey, by whom he had fourteen children, nine of whom survived him.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Overall, William Henry 1829 births 1888 deaths English librarians English antiquarians Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London