For census return prior to 1911, though a form was completed by the householder they have not survived, what we see if the enumerators books where the info from the original forms were collated for each ED.
The 1911 is the first census where the original forms were retained so we see what the householder (or whoever completed the form) wrote. Sometimes people misunderstood the instruction and listed names of all the children they had living or deceased though gave correct info in the numbers of children born/alive/died columns.
Way back when we first had access to the 1911 census I was delighted to find one of these forms as at the time we had no access to an index with MMN prior to 1911 so I had no chance of knowing this child had existed.
The couple had 12 children, 11 living and 1 had died. The Dad listed all 12 names and the final entry reads (though the enumerator later put a line through it, its still readable)
Paul Walsh, age 1 day, occupation Dead.
Boo
