Designed by the celebrated William Rennie, whose other notable clippers included Black Prince, Fiery Cross and the great Norman Court, the John R. Worcester was built by the Marine Investment company at Port Glasgow in 1865. Ordered by John Worcester & Co of London, she was a composite clipper of 844 tons and measured 191 1/2 feet in length with a 32 1/2 foot beam. Launched in January in 1866, she went straight out to China in ballast (100 tons of pig iron and 250 tons of shingle) where she loaded 12,500 chests of tea, 221 bales of raw silk and 125 casks of wine in eighteen days. Clearing Shanghai on 9 July, she did the run home to London in 114 days arriving on 31 October. The following year, 1867, the Worcester Co. failed and their nameship was sold to J. Patton Jnr. of London who continued her in the British tea trade until 1871. Her maiden passage home in 1866 proved her fastest from China to the U.K. and for the 1872 season, Patton's tried her on the American tea run. Between 1872 and 1875, she did three round trips between China and the U.S.A. without ever returning to London, her best passage being a speedy 89 days (Shanghai to New York) in 1872 even though her master, Captain Cawse, had spuriously claimed a record crossing of 84 days.

With the tea trade going over to steam, the John R. Worcester was put to work on the Australian wool run and, on the way out to Sydney (from London) in July 1875, she clocked 347 miles in 24 hours through the 'Roaring Forties'. Back for a final tea voyage in 1877, Patton's sold her to J. Stewart of London in 1884 and five years after that, she was sold to Italian owners in Castellamare who renamed her L'Immacolata. Subsequently resold again, this time to Neopolitan owners, she ran aground in 1896 and was dismantled in situ after being judged insalvable.