John Overall - Dean of St Paul's, Bishop of Norwich
Born in 1559, in Hadleigh, Suffolk. In Overall's time, Hadleigh was a center for radical Protestantism. He was baptised there on 2 March 1561, the younger son of George Overall, who died that July. The future bishop studied at Hadleigh Grammar School, where he was a fellow student with Bible translator John Bois.
At the Hampton Court Conference, a decision was made to make a new English translation of the Bible.
John Overall served as a translator “in the First Westminster Company” of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. His name appears in the 1611 and 1613 printings, and he is associated with the translation of the chapters from Genesis to 2 Kings. During work on the Authorized Bible, Overall became a friend of Bishop Lancelot Andrews (1555–1626), and the two were firm allies from then on, forming the Arminian wing of the Anglican church. Both Overall and Andrews are considered early fathers of the Anglican Church, along with Thomas Cranmer, Matthew Parker, Richard Hooker, John Cosin, and William Laud. They discriminated and vindicated the Anglican position as opposed to both Papalism and Puritanism.
John Bois - Prebendary of Ely Cathedral (3 January 1560 – 14 January 1643)
Bois was born in Nettlestead, Suffolk, England, His father was William Bois, a graduate of Michaelhouse, Cambridge.
At the age of five years John could read the Bible in Hebrew. He was sent to school at Hadleigh, then at the age of 15 went to St John's College, Cambridge,
In 1604 he was recruited for one of the Cambridge committees set up to translate the Bible into English. He also served in the "Second Cambridge Company" charged by James I of England with translating the Apocrypha for the King James Version of the Bible. Six years later, when the work was done, the different translations were reviewed by six scholars for the final publication. Bois was one of their number. The Bible was then published in 1611.