Hutton returned to England on 17 December 1904 and a few days later visited the War Office. The reception, this time around, was not as it had been after his return from New South Wales, Canada or South Africa. Although military figures received Hutton with courtesy, the environment had changed. A new guard with new ideas had taken over. Moreover, Arnold-Forster, as Secretary of State for War, gave a ‘coldness’ of reception that disturbed Hutton, despite the long pseudo-friendship between the two. He refused Hutton an official audience and ensured that he never officially received the Australian Government's formal thanks for his efforts. Nor, for that matter, did Hutton receive any formal honours for his services in Australia. In Hutton's mind such a rebuff was a consequence of Arnold- Forster's support for the failed imperial reserve scheme of 1902. Hutton was received well by Sir Montagu Ommanney at the Colonial Office and with civility by Alfred Lyttelton, Chamberlain's successor as Secretary of State for the Colonies. In truth, however, Hutton had risen on the stars of Wolseley and Chamberlain. Without such men there was little to shield him from the controversies that had stalked him for the last decade or from his reputation at home and abroad as an outspoken and difficult martinet.

As a consequence, once back in London Hutton had difficulty securing an active appointment of significance. On 1 July 1905 he was given temporary command of the 3rd Division at Aldershot (subordinate to the now General Sir John French) and, soon after, concurrently took up responsibilities as the officer in charge of administration within Eastern Command under the command of Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen. Neither role satisfied Hutton's ambitions, and he chaffed at working under officers he considered from his time in South Africa to be his equals, if not his inferiors. Winning no friends in the process, he complained to those around him that more was his due thanks to ‘twelve years of Independent Command under diverse and difficult circumstances in various parts of the Empire’.