It sounds like the name of a punk band, but it was a fabric dye and a plant insecticide used for many years in farming. On May 28, 1886 Charles Brindley of Normal was using London Purple on a batch of potatoes. Suspended in water, it could be painted on the potatoes, which would allegedly protect them from potato bugs. (Sources said these insecticides were largely ineffective). London Purple was an arsenical insecticide and quite deadly, as was Paris Green.
Charles Brindley was smoking a cigarette while he sprinkled the potatoes with the insecticide. When his cigarette became loose, he rerolled it with his poison-wettened hands and continued smoking, thus ingesting the arsenic. Perhaps he believed that because the arsenic was diluted with water, it was not as dangerous. Within about ten minutes he began feeling sick and complained to his brother. He was taken into the house and became unconscious. After several hours of unconsciousness, he began having convulsions and died in this horrible way.
Even more alarming was the fact that London Purple was used in dyeing cloth in the late 19th century! In a factory setting dozens of people would be exposed to harmful fumes and accidental spills, some of them small children.