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This Topical Budget item depicts an encounter between Sir John Baddeley, the Lord Mayor of London, and his Brussels counterpart, Burgomaster Adolphe Max, who had been in the job since 1909. Max (1869-1939) was one of the more distinguished holders of the office, having made his name during World War I by meeting the invading German army on 20 August 1914 and making it clear that he would refuse to co-operate with them. Several public protests later, he was arrested and imprisoned. He escaped shortly after the Armistice had been declared on 13 November 1918, and was greeted as a hero on his return to Brussels. He was reappointed to his old post (which he had never formally relinquished, his replacement Charles Lemonnier only ever being regarded as acting burgomaster), which he held until his death. Max was also appointed an honorary minister of state, elected a member of the Academie Royale de Belgique and vice-president of the Conseil Superiere du Congo, Belgium's major African colony. In 1919, he was elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the Belgian parliament, where he campaigned (unsuccessfully) for universal adult suffrage. On a subsequent visit to Britain on 14 July 1924, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh. Michael Brooke
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Complete film (0:28)
