I think that if a couple are married then the assumption is that the husband is the father and so he didn't need to be there. If the mother is not married then I think they liked to know that the man acknowledged his responsibility and agreed to be recorded as the father - I suppose it was to prevent a woman implicating some random rich man with a view to financial support. On birth certificates I've seen, it's often the mother who is the informant - someone earlier on in this thread was suggesting you see who is down as Informant on the certificate in question.

So that was my idea - she pointed the finger, correctly or not, at Mr Shields and the Registrar wrote it down in the register before finding out they weren't married, and so had to cross the entry out as he wasn't there to back her up.

Or it could have been a clerical error - maybe the name appeared in the previous entry? This doesn't appeal so much to my fanciful imagination though, doesn't seem so plausible.

I wonder if there is a list of the code numbers that were used? It would be interesting to find out the precise meaning of that particular number.