He was educated at Rugby School and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos in 1868.

He was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn in April 1870 and joined the Midland and North-Eastern Circuits, in addition to a London practice.

[2] Though Junior Counsels to the Treasury were appointed to the High Court as a matter of course, Sutton had to wait for 15 years for judicial preferment, there being doubts about his abilities.

[2] Finally, on 4 December 1905, he was appointed to the High Court and assigned to the King's Bench Division, receiving the customary knighthood.

Two of his daughters were married to the Liberal MP Julius Bertram and the South African politician Herbert Warington Smyth.