Second Lieutenant Alfred James Pickup was born in Croydon, Surrey, England, on October 21 1887, to parents James and Louisa Pickup. After immigrating to Canada in April of 1912 he worked as bank clerk in Ladysmith, British Columbia, before moving to Victoria, B.C.

With the outbreak of war he returned to England in September 1914, where in December he was commissioned as an officer with the 13th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, British Expeditionary Force. He was serving with the 2nd Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, when he was killed in the Battle of Loos on September 26, 1915. Pickup is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, at Pas de Calais, France.

The letters in the Pickup Collection were published in the Ladysmith Chronicle newspaper and were compiled, along with those of other local WWI soldiers, through the work of the Ladysmith & District Historical Society (links shown below).
The complete list of soldiers in the can be found in the Ladysmith and District Historical Society collection.

External links:
A member of the British Army, 2/Lt. Alfred JamesPickup (Serv/Reg# 1794) does not have a publicly available service record.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
A collection of WWI soldiers' letters published in The Ladysmith Chronicle was undertaken by the Ladysmith & District Historical Society through their work with the Ladysmith Archives.