If this example is by William Cawdell (Free 1583), it is an interesting and unusual example of his work. Cawdell was a specialist spoonmaker and probably the major trade spoon supplier of his day. Records indicate that he had close ties to his home parish church of St Vedast in Foster Lane, London, and that he was appointed Churchwarden of St Vedast from 1605 to 1608. This communion cup is hallmarked for 1587, the same year in which Cawdell married Elizabeth Cottrell. Cawdell retained his close ties with St Vedast for life, and in his will, dated 18th June 1625, he expressed a wish to be buried in his parish church “neare to the seate where I usually use to sit”.

Further note: After Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome and established himself as the Head of a new Church of England in 1534, liturgical silver developed new forms to signal the move away from Roman Catholic traditions. The Reformation (c.1534-1590) saw a return to a simpler, more direct form of worship. The order for communion to be taken by the laity as well as the priest was made in 1548, but it was not until the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) that the Protestant authorities in England instructed that all remaining chalices should be changed into communion cups. A large amount of Medieval church plate was destroyed and some churches were left with no silver at all. From c.1560, the church authorities launched a programme to replace the ‘old massing chalices’ with ‘decent’ communion cups of a prescribed design, similar to this example. The Archbishop of Canterbury led the campaign and it was implemented by the Goldsmiths' Company in conjunction with local goldsmiths. Each region interpreted the newly desired design according to local traditions, but in form the communion cup now resembled a large domestic cup rather than the shallow bowl of the pre-Reformation chalice. This was intended to demonstrate - on a symbolic and practical level - that the consecrated wine was for use by the congregation as well as the priest. Sacred imagery was considered 'superstitious', hence the simple engraved patterns seen on this and other examples. 

For similar examples see:

The Victoria & Albert Museum, Metalwork Collection, Accession no. LOAN:BLETCHINGLEY.1 (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O118310/communion-cup-unknown/)

The Victoria & Albert Museum, Metalwork Collection, Accession no. LOAN:MUMBY.1&A (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O113518/communion-cup-and-morley-john/) 

(Ref: Adapted from information taken from the V&A website)