El Recuerdo was founded in 1880 when Alfonso XII restored the Society of Jesus in Spain, after their expulsion by Charles III.

The Dukes of Pastrana-Infantado donated their land in Chamartin de la Rosa for the foundation of the school, and classes began in early 1880.

[3][better source needed] In 1920, a new, Gothic-Moorish style building was designed by Modesto Lopez Otero, who modelled it after the house of Ignatius of Loyola in Azpeitia.

[citation needed] The school building was closed under the Government of the Second Republic that again expelled the Jesuits,[4] but classes were held clandestinely.

[citation needed] In the postwar period the El Recuerdo facility housed the Jesuit philosophate, until 1955 when this was moved to Alcalá de Henares.