[1] Late in 1722 or early in 1723 he was ordained, and served as curate and usher to George Marsh, who from 1699 to 1737 was vicar of Milton Abbas and the master of its grammar school.
Political agitation among his parishioners at Wareham involved him in difficulties, and his weak voice and growing deafness diminished his influence in the pulpit.
On Sunday, 25 July 1762, when the town of Wareham was devastated by fire and his rectory-house was burnt to ashes, his topographical papers were rescued by Mrs. Hutchins at the risk of her life.
Jacob Bancks, his patron, urged Hutchins to compile a county history of Dorset; and Browne Willis, when visiting in 1736, persuaded him to undertake the work.
Three years later Hutchins circulated from Milton Abbas a single-sheet folio of six queries, with an appeal for aid, which was drawn up by Willis and printed at his cost.
The work dragged for many years, but a handsome subscription encouraged the compiler in 1761 to search the principal libraries and the records in the Tower of London.
In 1774, after his death, it was published in two folio volumes as the History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, but there was prefixed a dedication by Hutchins, dated 1 June 1773.
Letters by Hutchins are published in Nichols's Illustrations of Literature and Literary Anecdotes, William Stukeley's Family Memoirs (Surtees Society), and in Notes and Queries, 5th ser.
Hutchins married Anne, daughter of Thomas Stephens, rector of Pimperne, Dorset, at Melcombe Horsey on 21 December 1733; she died on 2 May 1796, aged 87.