Postboxes of this type became widespread in Great Britain, Ireland and most countries of British influence. The latter include many former British colonies - current members of the Commonwealth and overseas territories such as Australia, India and Gibraltar.
Correspondence from such boxes is regularly removed by the postal service - Royal Mail, the Irish company An Post or another postal operator in the country - and after processing is sent to the recipients.

British standing letterboxes first appeared in 1852, 12 years after the introduction of Uniform Penny Post and the introduction of the first postage stamps.
Since 1976, there has been a Letter Box Study Group in the UK, according to which there are more than 150 different designs and varieties of standing and wall-mounted letter boxes, although not all of them have survived to this day. English Heritage, which advocates for the preservation of red pillar boxes as national treasures, estimates that there are currently 115,000 post boxes in the UK.
The largest private collection of more than 80 British post boxes is located in the Inkpen Post Box Museum, Somerset.
On 8 October 2002, the British Post Office commemorated standing postboxes on a series of five "Pillar to Post" stamps. The miniatures depicted standing boxes from the 1857, 1874, 1934, 1939 and 1980 models.