Kitson & Co. (Airedale Foundry, Leeds)

Kitson & Co. (sometimes Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson, and afterwards Kitson & Co. Ltd.) operated the Airedale Foundry in Hunslet, Leeds, a major nineteenth-century British locomotive works, founded in 1838 by James Kitson. The works was one of the principal Leeds locomotive builders alongside Fenton Murray's earlier Round Foundry and the later Hunslet Engine Co.

Kitson's products included a wide variety of mainline and industrial engines for British and overseas customers, the firm pioneering the Kitson-Meyer articulated locomotive in the 1890s for steeply-graded mountain railways. Notable engines built included contractor batches for the Metropolitan Railway and many small industrial 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 saddle tanks.

The firm went into receivership in 1934 and the works closed in 1938. The Airedale Foundry buildings were demolished in the late twentieth century; the site is now industrial estate in Hunslet.