Kitson was born in
Leyburn,
Yorkshire, and attended school in
Ripon. Intending originally to take
holy orders, he took his BA (1896) and MA (1904) at
Cambridge, where he was
organ scholar of
Selwyn College. Between those dates, he also took the BMus (1897) and DMus (1902) degrees at
Oxford, as an
external student. After teaching at
Haileybury and
St Edmund's School, Canterbury, he became organist of St John the Baptist, Leicester. His first important post was as organist at
Christ Church Cathedral in
Dublin, in 1913 – a post which he held until 1920 and which he combined with the post of Professor of Theory at the
Royal Irish Academy of Music. During his stay in Dublin, he became Professor of Music at
University College Dublin between 1916 and 1920, filling temporarily the post of Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923). In 1920, he resigned both posts and returned to England, settling in
London, where he joined the staff of the
Royal College of Music. The same year, he also succeeded
Percy Buck as Professor of Music at
Trinity College, Dublin – a non-residential post, from which he retired in 1935. Among his notable pupils are
Hubert Clifford,
Arthur Duff,
Arwel Hughes,
John F. Larchet,
Herbert Sanders,
Robert Still,
Michael Tippett, and
S. Drummond Wolff. He died in
Kensington, London, where he was living at 5, Argyll Road, in 1944. ==Writings==