It was first identified in samples of beach sands from the West Coast region of New Zealand by the mineralogist Colin Osborne Hutton (1910–1971).

Huttonite was first described in 1950 from beach sand and fluvio-glacial deposits in South Westland, New Zealand, where it was found as anhedral grains of no more than 0.2 mm maximum dimension.

It is most prevalent in the sand at Gillespies Beach, near Fox Glacier,[5][6] which is the type location, where it is accompanied by scheelite, cassiterite, zircon, uranothorite, ilmenite and gold.

[7] Hutton suggested the huttonite contained in the beach sand and fluvio-glacial deposits originated from Otago schists or pegmatitic veins in the Southern Alps.

[7] In addition to New Zealand, huttonite has been found in granitic pegmatites of Bogatynia, Poland,[8] where it associated with cheralite, thorogummite, and ningyoite; and in nepheline syenites of Brevik, Norway.

Huttonite is found very close to its ideal stoichiometric composition, with impurities contributing less than 7% mole fraction.

Equatorially, five nearly planar oxygen atoms representing vertices of distinct silicate tetrahedra coordinate each thorium.

Substitution of the rare-earth elements and phosphorus of monazite with thorium and silicon of huttonite can occur to generates a solid solution.