Scottish Messenger-At-Arms & Sheriff Officer & Leading After-Dinner Speaker

Roderick Macpherson is an after dinner speaker. He is also a messenger-at-arms and sheriff officer in Scotland (Englished – if you prefer, but he would not – bailiff). Roderick Macpherson comes from a long line of messengers, with both his father and grandfather having held that office under the Lord Lyon King of Arms. He was 23 when he became one too. Talking of long ago, if you are curious about Robert Burns’ famous letter, dated Dumfries, 5th February 1792, sending money for a poet’s tombstone and copy of a new book, The Duty and Office of a Messenger at Arms, just ask Roddy to say more!

The Lord Lyon is responsible for regulating heraldry in Scotland, and still admits to office the officers of court who enforce orders from the Court of Session.

Since 2021, Roderick has held the higher heraldic office of Unicorn Pursuivant, in which capacity he was on duty at the state solemnities the following year and also at the Coronation in 2023. The pathos and the bathos in both types of role, practical and dignified – officer of court and officer of arms – fill his anecdotage.

Roderick Macpherson can also be a touch theatrical (although his experience with the Citizens’ Theatre was only as its chairman).

Playfully, he posits that his delivery is inflected by two and a half centuries of professional speaking! If succession through teachers be allowed, this is the proof: his great grandfather, Percival Steeds, eminent teacher of public speaking in Glasgow, studied elocution in 1900 with the elderly “Young” William Farren, of the 18th to 20th centuries Farren dynasty of comedy actors.

Speaking:

As a speaker, Roderick Macpherson has been noted for only quarter of a century (the starting point, if proof be needed for that boasting, being the astonishing success of his speech, immediately following Ian Hislop’s, at the inaugural Glasgow Business Awards Dinner in 1998).

His experience has been, a few times, international. In Hungary, at a conference opening ceremony, he spoke on the theme of law enforcement. He somehow managed to link the Scots Queen and Saint Margaret, the French Revolution, and Glenlivet whisky. This received laughter at all the right bits.  The applause however, probably belonged more to the interpreter, in a remarkable double act at the podium.

Being, at once, the horny-handed son of toil in the law and the Oxford-educated historian, Roderick Macpherson also loves the fun in learning – and, after due consideration of what would be to the purpose and therefore eloquent, in the practical business of speaking out.

Why Hire Roderick Macpherson?