Titcomb very soon made himself popular, and had large congregations attending his church; he instituted Sunday schools and district visitors, and became a very successful open-air preacher.
The Earl of Onslow, who had witnessed the success of his ministry in South Lambeth, gave him the living of Woking, Surrey, in March 1876.
In the following year he was appointed the first bishop of the newly formed diocese of Rangoon (now Yangon) in British Burma, and consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 21 December 1877.
He held a confirmation in the Andaman Islands, consecrated a missionary church at Toungoo, ordained to the diaconate Tamil and Karen converts, paid seven visits to Moulmein resulting in the appointment of a chaplain there, and baptised and confirmed numerous Tamils, Karens, Burmese, Chinese, Eurasians and Telugus.
On 17 February 1881 he fell over a cliff in the Karen hills,[2] and was so injured that he was ultimately obliged to return to England, where, on 3 March 1882, he resigned his bishopric.
An account of some portion of his career as a bishop is given in his autobiography Personal Recollections of British Burma, and its Church Mission Work in 1878–9 (London, 1880).