Tom Criddle Stephenson (1893–1987) was a British journalist and a leading champion of walkers' rights in the countryside.
In the First World War he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector.
He is credited with having inspired the creation of the Pennine Way, the first of Britain's long-distance footpaths, through an article he wrote for the Daily Herald in 1935,[1] and his subsequent lobbying work with MPs as Ramblers' Association Secretary.
He was also a long-serving committee member of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society (now the Open Spaces Society).
He complained to close colleagues that the Society's committee was boring, but that it was necessary to maintain a strong presence to prevent it from caving in to landowners' interests, as had happened in the 1930s under the Access to Mountains Bill (subsequently repealed).