TWO descendants of a family with important historic connections to Liskeard made a visit to the town's museum to make a special presentation.

Jeremy Lang, from Rutland, has presented to the town the logbook of the motor torpedo boat ML261which was captained by his grandfather, Tom Lang, during the First World War in the seas around Gibraltar. Jeremy was accompanied on the visit by his cousin, and fellow grandson of Tom Lang, David Vivian.

Jeremy presented the logbook, together with a picture of the torpedo boat, to the town's deputy mayor, Jane Pascoe, and museum curator Anna Monk.

He said: 'My grandfather carefully kept this interesting record from the First World War throughout his life and it has been in our family for 98 years. I now think it should be kept somewhere safe and where other people can view it. We decided it should be kept in Liskeard, where we have so much family history.'

Jeremy's grandfather Tom was the owner of Langs Timber Merchants in Liskeard and Looe. There is now a housing estate on the Liskeard site, which is close to the railway station and has a Lang Road named after the family. Tom's children were Jeremy's father Sandy, another son named Tom and a daughter named Joan – the mother of David Vivian. The connections to the town go further back into history, however, as the family dynasty began with Jeremy and David's great great grandfather Thomas, who was mayor of Liskeard in 1890 and also served as a Justice of the Peace.

Thomas's lasting legacy is the long pavement, edged with granite, which runs for a mile through the town from Windsor Place to the railway station. This gift to the town is commemorated by a blue plaque on the wall at the entrance to Lanchard Cemetery.

It was Thomas Lang who started the old sawmills in the town which were later to become the site used by the family's timber merchant business, but he was best known as the contractor responsible for constructing a number of important building works in the area. He first came to Liskeard in the 1850s, when Brunel's Cornwall Railway (later part of the Great Western Railway) was being constructed and, in partnership with William Mead, he built Liskeard station and others further up the line.

One of Thomas's greatest works was the building of the old Moorswater and Liskeard viaducts, which were originally timber trestle structures. He also constructed the Lostwithiel to Fowey branch line, today still used by china clay trains to reach the deep-river port, and when the partnership with William Mead was dissolved he carried on by himself to build the quays at Lelant, the branch line from St Erth to St Ives and the loopline between Par and St Blazey.

Thomas was also responsible for restoration work on the nave in Liskeard parish church, and he rebuilt Lanhydrock House after it was destroyed by fire in 1881.

He later took two of his sons into partnership and his other works included building the now-closed Gwinear Road to Helston branch line, hotels in Newquay and St Ives and began the major work of constructing the elegant Calstock Viaduct – the largest structure in Britain to be built of concrete blocks – over the River Tamar for the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway (PD&SWJR) in 1904.

Jeremy and David's great grandfather, John Charles, who married Edith Ellen Hoskin, the parents of Captain Tom Lang, was an architect and builder and was also involved in railway construction. He built the PD&SWJR line from Bere Alston to Plymouth which now forms part of the Tamar Valley branch to Gunnislake. He retired to Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada, in around 1910, going on to help build much of the island's infrastructure.

In 1904 the Cornish Times carried a lengthy obituary for Thomas Lang. It began: 'It is with much regret we have to announce the death of Mr Thomas Lang JP, one of Liskeard's most prominent and respected inhabitants, who passed away at 11.30am yesterday morning at his residence in Grove Park'.