Alfred Meakin overstamp

I have a number of Alfred Meakin pieces which are from the Thirties, some of which are over-stamped with "Decorated by Alfred Clough, St Louis Works, Longton". Does this mean that Meakins created the item and outsourced it to Cloughs to paint? and is this something that happened quite often please?
Thanks.

I think the simple answer is yes, Clough bought in Meakin blanks to decorate. How close the companies were I don't know. Depends on whether clough was buying in tableware blanks from a number of companies or only from Meakin. Or whether Meakin was outsourcing some of its decoration to Clough during busy periods, in which case the same decoration may have other decorators stamps, not just Clough. .