The son of William Henry Overall and Rosetta Davey, he was born on 18 January 1829 at St. John's Wood.
He was educated at a private school and then at the newly opened City of London College, Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate.
He died at Crouch End, Middlesex, after a long illness, on 28 June 1888, and was buried in St. Pancras cemetery, Finchley, on 3 July.
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.
[1] Overall also wrote catalogues of various collections in the Guildhall Library, papers on antiquarian subjects, and: He was married, on 20 April 1851, to Mary Anne Elizabeth Bailey, by whom he had fourteen children, nine of whom survived him.