‘The Occasional Speaker’ is a chapter in The Making of an Orator. O’Connor Power cites a speech of the Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher, at the Royal Academy banquet 1903, as an example of ‘unconventional oratory … breezy humour thinly veiling the serious purpose’.*
Sir John Fisher (1841-1920) modernised and rebuilt the Royal Navy, replacing wooden boats with steel-plated battleships and introducing torpedoes and submarines. He is a towering figure in British naval history.
Fisher outlawed flogging on his ships. In 1904 he was First Sea Lord.
* The Making of an Orator, pp. 271-274.