Beyer, Peacock & Co. (Gorton Foundry)

Beyer, Peacock & Co. operated the Gorton Foundry in Manchester, a major British locomotive works founded in 1854 by Charles Beyer (formerly of Sharp, Stewart) and Richard Peacock (formerly of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway). The foundry occupied a 13-acre site adjacent to the MSLR/GCR Gorton Works in east Manchester and supplied locomotives to British and overseas railways for 112 years.

The firm built ~7,800 locomotives in its working life, many for the Metropolitan Railway (the famous A and B class condensing 4-4-0 tanks), the Great Eastern, the Great Northern of Ireland and many overseas customers. From 1907 Beyer Peacock was the licensee of the Garratt articulated locomotive design, the firm's most distinctive product, exported to Africa, Australia, India and Latin America. For Britain it built one Garratt for the LNER (Class U1) and three for the LMS Toton–Brent traffic.

The firm was hard-hit by the post-1955 collapse of the steam locomotive market. It closed in September 1966, the last new British steam locomotive builder. The Gorton Foundry buildings were demolished in 1976; the site is now occupied by a retail park.