The office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead functions as a procedural device to allow a member of Parliament (MP) to resign from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

As members of the House of Commons are forbidden from formally resigning, a legal fiction is used to circumvent this prohibition: appointment to an "office of profit under The Crown" disqualifies an individual from sitting as an MP.

The position was reworked in 1861 by William Ewart Gladstone, who was worried about the honour conferred by appointment to people such as Edwin James, who had fled to the United States over £100,000 in debt.

The office was first used in this way on 20 March 1844 to allow Sir George Henry Rose, MP for Christchurch, to resign his seat.

[2] The incumbent steward of the Manor of Northstead is Scott Benton, formerly the Independent (elected Conservative) MP for Blackpool South.