To most students of phenomenology William Ralph Boyce Gibson (1869–1935) will be known only as the translator of Edmund Husserl's Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie and phänomenologischen Philosophie I (1913) under the title, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1931). This pioneer feat, however imperfect, undertaken by an accomplished British philosopher in his own right, has a remarkable history worth knowing for its own sake.² Probably the decisive phase occurred in Freiburg in 1928, where Boyce Gibson spent more than a semester of his sabbatical year from the University of Melbourne, Australia. This timing made him a witness of the transition from Husserl to Heidegger as the occupants of the most important phenomenological chair in German Philosophy. How unique a witness he was can now be shown on the basis of his Freiburg diary.