After returning from India in 1865, Hutton had become the pupil and friend of William McTurk, Henry Charles Angelo's successor at the school of arms in St James' Street. On leaving the army he focused on practicing modern fencing with foil, sabre, and bayonet, but mainly on the study and revival of older fencing systems and schools. In 1889 Hutton published his most influential work, "Cold Steel: A Practical Treatise on the Sabre", which presented an original method of military sabre use on foot, combining the 18th century English backsword with modern Italian duelling sabre. The treatise also offered self-defense techniques based on constable's truncheon and short sword-bayonet, as well as exercise material from 16th century texts, including Marozzo. He successfully advocated the use by cavalry of a straight pointed sword for thrusting rather than an edged sword for cutting. In 1890 he published "Fixed Bayonets", in which he insisted that a competently wielded bayonet should beat a good swordsman, but his views of bayonet fighting were regarded in the army as too theoretical for modern practical instruction. He retorted by deploring military reliance on Italian theories of swordsmanship to the exclusion of effective French practice.